re: #182 Targetpractice

Yes, unless she honestly believed he posed a threat. And no doubt she kept herself in denial for awhile, telling herself that she was seeing something that wasn’t there, that perhaps what she thought of as potentially dangerous behavior was simply a guy frustrated with life or having a hard time due to difficulties with his studies.

Why? Because the system has the power to yank her license away if she makes a bad call. The system discourages people from making such judgment calls and encourages silence in order to avoid punishment.

That last is a judgement American society has made, that protecting individual privacy holds the priority. If the rules were to be loosened, those who have mental issues and know they need help might be deterred from seeking it by the specter of the police being told about some dark dream they shared with their therapist. Such a disclosure could hold dire consequences in the hands of a prosecutor or detective who saw an opportunity to gin a charge of a murder plot, gain favorable publicity and pad their conviction rate.

Admittedly, that last line takes things a bit overboard, but its the kind of thing changes in favor of disclosure would have people thinking. And that sort of abuse likely would occur at some point, even if only as an isolated case.