Gunman kills five, wounds reporter in St. Louis suburb

That was rhetorical to say he nailed it on the head.

 

I agree with Jones, just for the record.

 

I agree with him, too, but, disagree that the problem will ever get fixed.

 

I had already chopped off a link and was ready to post a new topic on this.
But we've already got 3 pages from you guys.
this is more of what we were talking about the other day, when (I) (we) compared European with U.S. crime.
One out of two city councils in America has these type people attending every meeting, making outlandish comments.
They are not safe to be around, in most cases.
Certainly they should be frisked at the door.
Or would we be violating these agitators' civil rights by doing something like that?

 

Not at all. How can council do their jobs if you are constantly keeping an eye on the whacko you're not sure is gonna pull out a gun?

 

The last line should have been in blue font.

 

Is it because it's easy for citizens to obtain guns? Is it because it's relatively inexpensive to buy a gun and bullets? I don't know.

But I do know that Jonesie is right. It's not a shock when some nut pulls out a gun and starts shooting. Some idiot was planning to kill fans at the Super Bowl!

What do we, as Americans, have to do so these incidents never take place again.

 

One thing that might help is better access to, and funding of, mental health care, and the shedding of the stigma against it. There are a lot of people who need help and never get it, and once they have guns in their hands, it's tragedy times a million. Another thing is people dropping the "I never thought it would happen here" mentality. Exactly where do city council shootups or department store killings or college mowdowns happen on a regular basis? Sometimes there's nothing you can do, but if you have a case -- like Kirkwood -- where you have a clear indication of a disturbed individual, and you haven't put together a thorough plan to deal with him that includes mulling over the possibility that he could shoot up the place, you're putting everyone at unnecessary risk.

I had a situation like this with a colleague who had to leave work because of his mental illness. I won't go into too much detail, except to say that he was looking for me, and when I got word he was in the lobby a few times, I refused to show up to work. He was a gentle guy, but HE didn't know what he was capable of. He ended up trying to jump security one time and got arrested. Fortunately, the security guards were among the people who took him seriously as a threat. I still really feel for the guy, but I also had to balance that with my own self-preservation.

 

That would not have been a healthy choice.

 

Perhaps there's some information available from the Reagan Presidential Library on where our network of publicly-funded mental health institutions went.

 

Ok, tell that to a few council members who resigned near where I live because, legally, they couldn't stop someone from attending who kept showing up and causing trouble.

 

I haven't read all the stories, but I wonder if some attorney advised Kirkwood that if it tried to bar this guy from its meetings -- which it did consider -- it would get sued. But he was suing them anyway, wasn't he?

Even if you can't bar someone who is continually disruptive, there has to be something legally you can do. Have cops stop him outside the door for a search, have extra security on hand, something. I know you don't want to turn meetings into a fortress, but when you have a real warning of a threat, there has to be something you can do to minimize the risk.