Let's Not
It was the shoddy processing and failure to take required actions in the Mental Health Community that unleashed that hate-filled individual to walk free.
Let us not even look down that road, never mind walk it.
"Mental Health" is part of the problem, and looking to become the new end run around RKBA.
We look to "government" to protect us from bad people. Government does this by making laws that restrict good people, and then gloats over how it's "tough on crime."
Bad things continue to happen, government keeps "doing something" and adding layers of oppressive liberty-limiting laws that make it even harder for good people to protect themselves. More gloating and posturing.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Enter "Mental Health."
After four decades of "improving" the American education system, with stunning results, soaring academic performance, scholastic supremacy internationally, the Mental Health operatives are deemed "just the thing" to fix what's wrong with "protecting" the public from all those evil gun-totin' bad guys.
Now we can "diagnose" bad guys as dangerous before they actually commit any crimes, cutting through all that "chasing and solving" stuff. Even better, because we can pretty much
declare any "undesirable" mental state (as evidenced by behavior, speech, political leanings, ownership of "dangerous" items, etc.) to be a threat and, because
medicine isn't hampered by those pesky legal obstacles (probable cause, warrants, silly things like that), we can use this new "tool" to get a better handle on those troublesome [strike]peasants[/strike] -- er, ah -- criminals.
And you can trust "Mental Health."
Says who? Well, the government for starters. And, of course, the Mental Health professionals themselves. Naturally. No one else is qualified.
And government is, by definition, trustworthy. They know what's best for you.
However, I think I have a better idea.
Instead of listening to all the important, authoritative, self-certifying, trust-me-because-I-said-so politicians and charlatans, look to their results. Look to their products. Look to their actual outcomes.
The public has this knack of pleading
"SAVE ME!" to the very people who will, instead, enslave them.
The people holler to government to protect them, government responds by disarming the people, "for their own protection."
Some jerk kills a bunch of people, and government deflects blame by accusing the killer of "mental illness" and blaming "the system" for not detecting him and stopping him.
Perfect. Government is off the hook, some nebulous "system" is to blame, government regrets that current legislation keeps them from using the "Mental Health" tool. Waits for the public outcry to
DO SOMETHING!
"Well, I guess we
could tighten up the mental health interface and give the "medical community" greater authority to intercept these "crazy people" before they threaten the "public safety."
Well,
what are you waiting for?! DO SOMETHING!
And another piece of our liberty is gone, and government has yet another tool to disarm "undesirables."
Let us not continue to appeal to government and their "experts" to protect us.
Government is genetically wired to accrue unto itself the maximum possible power and control. Government funds those enterprises that aid in the increase of that power and control.
Sure, it's easier to point to some identifiable central authority and demand their intervention, but every such intervention has a cost.
And the currency of that cost is our liberty.
