Re: Sliding scale
edlorah
location: The Recession Will Not Be Televised
listening to: http://www.instantrimshot.com/
registered: 1999.12.27
posts: 3664
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I still want to know Gene, how a guy with even half the problems you're listing is able to buy two handguns and enough ammo to kill 32 people.....with a documented history of involuntary detention no less. In the late 1980's I worked for a downtown mental health program for mentally ill "street people" referred from the county jail. People couldn't receive services from our program unless they'd been referred from the jail. One of the clients I saw regularly for three years was as delusional and as hard to reach as anyone I have ever worked with. He always refused anti-psychotic medication and it took me a couple of years to build enough trust with him to get him to come in and check in with me once a week on a regular basis.As i got to know him he began to open up some and what he revealed was really fucking scary: violent, and very graphic, fantasies. But because they weren't directed at anyone- not me, not anyone- and because his behavior was always reasonable in the office there were no legal grounds to detain him. Believe me, I kept none of this to myself and consulted with his psychiatrist, my supervisors, the involuntary treatment team, etc; We took a "watch and wait" approach. There was nothing else to do.
Until one day he came to see me and while he was sitting in the waiting room pulled a pistol from his jacket and just sat there with it. One of our nurses, thinking very quickly, said "wow, what a cool gun. can I see it?" And he just handed it over to her. The police were called and he was sent off to the State Mental Hospital south of Seattle. The gun was unloaded but of course we didn't know that until later.So, how did this guy with a jail record and a well-documented mental health history manage to purchase a handgun? The same way the VT shooter did. No checks, no waiting periods, too many guns, too much money to be made, too much blind acceptance of gun culture (too few brains as Marlowe would say).And just in case you think the job was all dodging bullets, one of my other clients shoplifted a David & David cassette and gave it to me as a present... the first time I had ever heard of them.
–--
"It was done only for political reasons only anyway. "
"It was done only for political reasons only anyway. "
E
edlorah
(view)
I still want to know Gene, how a guy with even half the problems you're listing is able to buy two handguns and enough ammo to kill 32 people.....with a documented history of involuntary detention no less. In the late 1980's I worked for a downtown mental health program for mentally ill "street people" referred from the county jail. People couldn't receive services from our program unless they'd been referred from the jail. One of the clients I saw regularly for three years was as delusional and as hard to reach as anyone I have ever worked with. He always refused anti-psychotic medication and it took me a couple of years to build enough trust with him to get him to come in and check in with me once a week on a regular basis.As i got to know him he began to open up some and what he revealed was really fucking scary: violent, and very graphic, fantasies. But because they weren't directed at anyone- not me, not anyone- and because his behavior was always reasonable in the office there were no legal grounds to detain him. Believe me, I kept none of this to myself and consulted with his psychiatrist, my supervisors, the involuntary treatment team, etc; We took a "watch and wait" approach. There was nothing else to do.
Until one day he came to see me and while he was sitting in the waiting room pulled a pistol from his jacket and just sat there with it. One of our nurses, thinking very quickly, said "wow, what a cool gun. can I see it?" And he just handed it over to her. The police were called and he was sent off to the State Mental Hospital south of Seattle. The gun was unloaded but of course we didn't know that until later.So, how did this guy with a jail record and a well-documented mental health history manage to purchase a handgun? The same way the VT shooter did. No checks, no waiting periods, too many guns, too much money to be made, too much blind acceptance of gun culture (too few brains as Marlowe would say).And just in case you think the job was all dodging bullets, one of my other clients shoplifted a David & David cassette and gave it to me as a present... the first time I had ever heard of them.
–--
"It was done only for political reasons only anyway. "
"It was done only for political reasons only anyway. "
