re: #345 Obdicut

I’m sorry, how is that in the least bit an answer to my question? I asked what role mental health professionals could play, and you simply asserted that previous mass shooters had been evaluated by mental health professionals. Wouldn’t this point more to the inefficacy of mental health in preventing shootings?

The doctor at University of Colorado who deemed Holmes a threat could have been heeded. She spotted the danger and reported it to higher authority. Those facts do not support an argument that it is “impossible” for mental health professionals to have any effect on the course of events. Only that the system as currently constituted isn’t getting the job done. Which, I think, was pretty much the point the president was getting at.

And Loughner, too, was identified by professionals as being mentally off. Again, the system dropped the ball. But it needn’t have. An attack that comes as an absolute bolt from the blue, from someone who has never been recognized as a possible threat, cannot be prevented by better mental health system and a better legal system for addressing the interface between mental illness and public safety. But these two attacks were not bolts from the blue, and if we make reforms now, future similar dangers may be headed off.