Just when I was thinking of selling my T-34

[kandrathe]

But if we want to get to the heart of the problem, we also need to address the guns place in our violence glorified society.

I would say the heart of the problem is social psychology, and not the specific inanimate objects humans use and abuse.

For me, it comes down to the "need" of an item.

Who defines what you "need"? Maybe they don't think you "need" very much at all.

I wont argue with that at all. So let's talk Mental Health. The following picture has an obvious liberal slant to it.

Yeah, so? If we looked at which political party is supported by a constituency, we'd see it was the party that advocates for them best. So, let's not focus on partisan quibbles. I am Adam Lanza's psychiatrist -- he's not really, but he is a psychiatrist who deals with the potential Adam Lanza's. Here are the suggestions;

• The US Congress: Please create better laws to ensure the ticking time bomb is caught before it is too late. Make it much easier for a family to get a potentially dangerous person into mandated treatment. This means less paperwork, too. We need to support parents and mental health professionals.
  
• The US Justice Department: It’s time we enacted a Health Law Court. Have doctors serve as judges and streamline legal proceedings for tough medical and psychiatric cases. Go to commongood.org for ideas on how this can be done.
  
• Health Insurance Companies: Man up. My main complaint is with you. You make it so hard to keep people in the hospital when they need to be there, and it’s even harder to keep them in intensive outpatient services. Please create protocols for difficult cases and loosen the purse strings for extremely troubled individuals –- before it’s too late.
  
• Network TV: Please create some exciting television that is actually educational about mental illness. Or least give us a “Gossip Girl” who takes her medication and sees her psychiatrist regularly. Less stigma, better health.
  
• Drug Companies: You are always trying to ply me with coffee and doughnuts. I have trust issues with you. Don’t want anything, thanks.
  
• The Hollywood PR Machine: Please find the mental health community a really attractive celebrity to get the US mental health system some money. I am glad that George Clooney and Angelina Jolie are doing so much for Africa, but can we borrow one of them please?
  
• High School Students: Tell the popular kids to stop being such dicks to the odd kids or the ones they don’t understand.
  
• Community Psychiatry Health Researchers: You have kick-ass and innovative ideas for how to reform the system. Could one of you put on a sequin dress and walk a red carpet please? We need to get you more money.

No. We don't license alcohol drinkers. We license Car Operators, and when you drink, and drive, you lose the license that gives you the access to the implement of the crime. Your blurb here is helping my point.

If you are right, you are right. I'm having a discussion, not a debate. No. We only act against those who've committed a crime. Should we ban Lexus, if they were the make of vehicle most used in DWI deaths? Should we ban alcohol? We tried that once.

DWI Recidivism: Risk Implications for Community Supervision

So, let's get real about it. Using this analogy, if they lost the license to the implement of the crime (in your case, a driver's license. in my case, a gun license) permanently, we'd probably see a reduction in crime on both death statistics.

So, in that analogy, yes, after someone goes on a mass shooting spree -- they'd lose their access to firearms. Which is already the law, since convicted felons cannot own or possess guns. Do convicted felons use guns now?

And the easiest way to make sure that happens is through stiff penalties and revocation of licenses when you do something that proves you are unfit.

After the fact again. What is being called for is a preemptive action to prevent the 1st time unbalanced person from going on a mass shooting. Really, the choices are you lock up people before they've broken any laws, or you outlaw and lock up the stuff they tend to use. This of course denies "the stuff" from people who use it responsibly.

So, you're saying that a licensing program that also served as a teaching point about gun safety wouldn't make people more responsible gun owners?

I was taught by the NRA. Personally, before my kids touch a gun they will go through a firearms safety course. The question is what should the government do to ensure people are responsible? The legal and financial repercussions of the failure to abide by the laws of our government are usually onerous. The issuance of the "license" gives the government the right to permit, or deny you your 2nd amendment rights at their discretion. This is a vast and costly proposed remedy for prevention of mass murders, which are a very small percent of murder cases. And, in that, guns are used in only 8% of violent crime -- but hand guns are used in about 60% of murders. Long guns (shotguns and rifles) were used less often than knives or fists, yet we are again looking at the restriction on the objects not frequently used in crimes. What we are facing is an emotional reaction to a horrible incident resulting in "feel good" legislation and pandering by both sides to their political constituents. But, we do not focus on the *real* issues, meaning we will revisit this type of horrible tragedy in the future, but there will be some other circumstances we did not, or were not able to prevent.

So yeah. When things happen, and people are stupid, and it results in their weapons being used to murder someone? They should lose their right to own a firearm just as much as the man convicted of a felony.

It should be rare that we deny a person their constitutional rights.