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There have been a lot of calls to incarcerate the mentally ill from the pro-gun side and I would argue that these calls are no better than the gun control calls. Up until the 70s, the mentally ill were warehoused in inhumane and awful conditions in sanitariums around the country. As a kid I lived near a few on LI where I grew up and we would walk the haunted grounds at night. Most by now are repurposed as schools, office space or industrial uses. Some remained prisons. I say prisons because these were nothing more than glorified prisons warehousing zombies (medication protocols for mental illness back then was to basically sedate the patient indefinitely).
Read the article here for a better solution. One where mental health commitments are not made by bureaucrats or self interested private hospital administrators (both of whom tend to abuse the process) but by panels using a scientific approach and the goal is not to restrict liberty but to provide structure and freedom to the afflicted.
http://www.cato-unbound.org/2012/08...ns-proposal-to-reform-involuntary-commitment/
Read the article here for a better solution. One where mental health commitments are not made by bureaucrats or self interested private hospital administrators (both of whom tend to abuse the process) but by panels using a scientific approach and the goal is not to restrict liberty but to provide structure and freedom to the afflicted.
http://www.cato-unbound.org/2012/08...ns-proposal-to-reform-involuntary-commitment/
"Because of the inadequacies of our current civil commitment practices, 5,000 individuals with mental illness commit suicide annually.[2] Another 200,000 are homeless.[3] Of course, those are not primary concerns to libertarians, most of whom believe that individuals have a right to kill themselves or live homeless.
But as a result of our current restrictive commitment procedures, persons with mental illness kill 1,000 individuals annually, roughly 10% of all homicides.[4] The most likely victims are family members,[5] police, and sheriffs.[6] ...
Because of restrictive civil commitment laws, individuals with serious mental illness are regularly shot by law enforcement who believe their erratic and irrational behavior is putting their own safety or that of the public in immediate danger.[7] People with severe mental illnesses are killed by police in justifiable homicides at a rate nearly four times greater than the general public."