Quote:
Originally Posted by barbara
I saw that on the news....
But, it really is very tricky to declare a person a danger to others or them self. I am very familiar with the local assessment team in our county and there are so many ways this system fails us.
There are too many times when the team conducts an interview and the person can maintain during that interview and give all the right answers. The minute the team leaves, the facade is dropped and despite several surprise visits, it is still a hard call to make.
This mass shooting issue creates ripples all through society. We need better gun laws, more mental health programs, more education in schools about the dangers of guns and when and how to use them with respect.
(Stepping off my soap box now)
|
Appreciate the benefit of your experience here, Barbara.
My own thinking is OK, some number of people will be wrongly caught up in coercive mental health commitment if we relax safeguards. That is bad. OTOH, it's also very bad to be shot dead in a nightclub. As long as we're smart and careful and able to keep the number of wrong commitments down to "dozens," I think the trade-off worth it.
And certainly when there's more doubt we do things short of commitment, just like visit people, watch them, try to be helpful on a voluntary basis.
And very certainly, the threshold for taking someone's guns, at least temporarily, should be quite low.