"They don't want to wound two kill zero and get blasted by an armed citizen"
Although, suicide by cop seems to be at least as common (i.e. still relatively uncommon) as these 'blaze of glory' types.
"So if the homicide victim was stabbed to death, clubbed to death, or beaten to death you don't care about them?"
That's a bit of a Battle of the Straw Men there, but yes, for the sake of addressing that component of violence committed with firearms, those taken by other means are irrelevant (now, whether we should tackle the gun-violence subset before the vehicular manslaughter subset, or whether measures taken against all violence would be more efficient; those are very valid, but separate, questions).
My beef with the mental health angle being expanded (and let's be honest; pretty much all proposals that target the mental health angle are intended to cast wider the net of individuals that would be denied firearms --same as all other gun regulations) is there is
precious little that would stop its further expansion. At least with criminal laws, we have this Constitution thing which can
eventually provide a barrier or correction to excessive behavior. But where mental health is concerned, the suspects are by nature assumed to be less than completely human, and thus do not enjoy the same standing or expectation of human rights as their fully-intact peers. Because we
have no 'fixed' document (which the Constitution is supposed to be, and
mostly is) with which to define which Americans should/can be trusted with freedom, there is nothing to fall back upon if the medical standards inevitably become over-broad or politically motivated.
If there were a 'medical' branch of government codified into our system and dutifully shackled with checks and balances like the other three, I would be more trusting of it. But since it is not so constrained, I see the medical community's close association with Judicial organs in providing authority (and direction
) on matters so sensitive as our human dignity to be very worrisome. Especially when the judiciary/medical community's goals align; keeping ever-more-potentially-dangerous citizens from harming themselves/others. Neither will dare say where they draw the 'sufficiently safe' line, so it will creep forward. Both assure us enforcement will be somehow self-limiting; that we will surely run out of prison/ward space long before the systems can become oppressive. And both will cry eternally that they do not sufficient resources to do even
greater good.
Now, where's that C.S. Lewis quote about benevolent-ish dictators...
TCB