It's Insane to Let Crazy People Purchase Guns

Jared Loughner

Virginia Tech Shooter and his first gun, a Glock 9

The Arizona gunman is, unfortunately, not the first and most certainly won't be the last example of a crazy person with easy access to weapons causing havoc and grief. I've written about de-institutionalization previously in this blog. Nobody really gives a damn about the seriously mentally ill until something like this happens, and the current concern will pass in a few weeks. And you can't even bring up the issue of reasonable gun regulations - the gun lobby and the Republican Party have made that the true third rail of American politics.

The closing of the psychiatric centers was due to several factors, primarily financial. The promise was that de-institutionalization was supposed to be accompanied by shifting resources to MH services in the communities. That didn't happen, in part because societal and political pressures favored tough "law and order" policies that were and are extremely expensive – and the mentally ill don’t vote in large numbers. The mental health disaster is not strictly a Republican or Democratic problem; there is plenty of blame to go around. As for mental patients getting guns, I'm afraid that's on conservative politicians and the all powerful NRA. The Clinton era laws that restricted access to semi-automatic weapons expired in 2004 when the Bush Administration and Republican Congress refused to renew them largely due to the NRA. Thus, Jared Loughner could walk into a store and legally purchase a Glock 9. Those are the facts.