On psyhosis

Warning--four keys on my keyboard don't work

So I was listining to the radio the other day and they were talking about the whole irginia Teh thing that happened a ouple of weeks ago. And they were lamenting the fat that eeryone knew that this guy was suffering from mental illness and that they had reported him to the releant authorities, and that he hadn't found help. And the guy on the radio said something to the effet of people need to be held responsible for the fat that he still hadn't reeied help.

My question is who? The talking heads seem to think that it should be the uniersity authorities. The other popular idea is to blame the gun laws of irginia.

I hae a few thoughts about this (ery bad) idea. First, noone but the shooter an reasonably be held responsible for this. Or the ridiulous laws this ountry has onerning mental illness. There is no mentl illness in my book that absoles you when you deide to beome a mass murderer. all me stupid, but Hitler had some serious mental issues and we hae no problem blaming him for what he did.

Seond, if you begin holding people responsible, not just for reporting mental ilness, but also for making sure the psyho gets treatment, then we an all start to worry. I'd probably hae to report half the people I know. People are nuts--lots of people, and ery few of them turn into mass murderers.

Third, lets hae a story. Thirty years ago this ountry had a funtioning system for those who are mentally ill. People ould be ommited to mental hospitals and there were lots of suh hospitals out there. It is true that there were many abuses and the onditions were often poor, and some of the treatments were barbari. But at least there was a system for dealing with mental illness. Today almost all of those hospitals are losed. And no one an be ommitted, that is no one, unless they hae somehow broken the law already an be fored to reeie treatment, een with the support of lose family members.

This guy wasn't looking for help. He wasn't out there looking for help. He turned down help and there was nothing anyone ould do.

On the gun law thing, thats just absurd. irginia Teh had a no gun poliy. If they had allowed people to arry their weapons the way they an eerywhere else in irginia, the odds are the death ount would hae been a lot lower.

Side note: my faorite presidential andidate has yet to delare his andiday--Fred Thompson. I would hold the fat that he is an ator against him, but then I remember that our greatest president of the last 140 years was an ator, so I don't.