assault weapon ban again

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Runscott

You are spot-on about this. I read more about the stabbing by the 16-yr old today - they said he was a B-B+ student with no apparent problems or past signs of mental illness, and looked like a 'deer in the headlights' after the stabbings. People treat these events as if the person all of a sudden became evil and should now be punished as quickly and severely as possible - we hear it right here on this forum. We never know at this stage why he did this, but 9 times out of 10 it was a first mental break. I've explained before what that actually means, and it falls on deaf ears for anyone who hasn't been through it with a loved one or close friend, so I won't repeat myself.

Protecting society from the 'symptoms' and administering punishment is also necessary, but, as you say, there needs to be a focus on the problem rather than the symptom. Gun-control helps deal with the symptoms, but trying a 16-yr old as an adult probably has more adverse consequences than positive. For one thing, it reinforces the punishment aspect, and you might be punishing someone for something that they had no control over - I suspect that knowing he was going to be punished, regardless of how severely, would have had no affect on this guy's actions. All it does is keep society happy and allow them to focus on the evil of the act and ignore the possible mental illness - no one wants to be responsible for other people's mental illness.

I'd agree with this.

There's a rush towards the knee jerk reaction to punish. That's what our society seems to demand (Myself included fairly often)

But the ability to deal with any underlying mental aspects even if they're known in advance is either totally missing or done in such an all or nothing way that it's unworkable.
Someone with a problem can't be forced to get help or to maintain that help. At least until they cross a certain line. And the alternative looks bad too if the people involved are clueless. Like the school that forced a kid who was fidgeting with a pencil into a 5 hour mental and physical evaluation after another kid who had been picking on him claimed he was making gun motions with the pencil - Coerced consent with no due process looks pretty ugly.

And there's no sensible provision for temporary circumstances. If someone in a bad situation says or is accused of saying the wrong thing, a restraining order is issued (probably appropriately) And that then precludes gun ownership permanently in many places. leading to the obligatory confiscations "voluntary" or otherwise. Likely prolonging the anger and making it more severe in the short term.
I can't help but think that many of those people will be just fine in some period of time. Their anger fades and the risk just isn't there. But the effects of that one mistake are for life.
An ability to temporarily remove someone's guns until a particularly bad stretch of their life has passed would be more work, and more difficult, but perhaps more fair in the long term.

Steve B