Good luck restricting someone's rights. Make someone register to vote before the day of the election? No way! That is against ALL their constitutional rights.

Decide someone cannot function to society's liking? Sure, why not take their rights!

People should be able to register on the same day they vote...as long as they have I.D. :)

Don't quite know what same day registration has to do with treating mental health...

http://gab.wi.gov/elections-voting/voters/registration-voting
You do need valid photo ID to same day register

'THE REGISTRATION CANNOT BE PROCESSED UNTIL THE ELECTOR PROVIDES THIS INFORMATION.

If the voter has a current, valid Wisconsin driver license but does not know the number and did not bring it to the polling place, poll workers must allow the voter to vote by provisional ballot. (Note: the voter CANNOT use the last 4 digits of their Social Security Number if he or she has been issued a Wisconsin driver’s license). The provisional ballot will not be counted until the voter either:

a) brings his or her driver license number to his or her polling place before the polls close at 8:00 pm on Election Day; or

b) transmits (via fax, email, telephone call or personal visit) his or her driver license number to the municipal clerk before 4:00 pm on the Friday after the Election."

Can we continue?

Keith, we HAD lots of mental health facilities that closed, thanks to the efforts of the ACLU and like-minded politicians who placed the rights of crazed dangerous "patients" over the rights of the rest of us and our safety. Apparently, they thought it was worth the price. It was (is) utterly predictable that crazy folks would do crazy (and unfortunately sometimes deplorable) things.

@GearHead....Most of the mental health facilities weren't shut down because of the ACLU but for fiscal reasons. Your hero Ronald Reagan began the process in California when he was governor and placed the mentally ill in with the criminal populations or they were turned loose on the streets. Group homes were supposed to be the answer, but no one wanted a group home in their community. So don't go spouting something you know nothing about.

Spouting, Lyle? Only to hear you sputtering. Reagan (along with 49 other governers) released the mentally ill into the streets because his hand was forced by the Supreme Court, thanks to advocacy by the likes of the ACLU. Their rights were recognized, to their own detriment. Those who committed crimes ended up in prison, and many of the rest ended up homeless being unable to cope. Another victory for liberalism!

@GearHead....I'm going back to the early 1970s and I was working with the mentally ill in California. Those that were judged to be violent or potentially violent were moved over to Vacaville from the state mental hospitals. It was a means to save money and not for the benefit of the patients. It was to be a temporary but became permanent.

Those that were evaluated as suitable for release to group homes, etc, were put out on the streets for management by the local mental health facilities. Those facilities were underfunded and under staffed leaving too many just to slip through the cracks. Reagan is the one I am most familiar with, but I know it occurred all over. Mental health services have been shoved to the bottom of the priority list and have been under funded for decades. Look what Scott Walker did to Milwaukee Mental health, he destroyed the program and it no longer exists. He thought you could privatize the services, but for the most dangerous there is no place to go.

Let's look at clinical staff, it requires 8 to 12 years of education and experience before becoming qualified to provide services. This includes psychiatrists, psychologists, clinical social workers and clinical nurses. These professions are not attracting enough people due to the arduous journey to licensure and the horrid low compensation paid. You want to change things, put your money where your mouth is.

Mr. Rubie,

The 1970s deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill was a joint effort by those advocating for the rights of those suffering from mental illness and those seeking to close some very expensive and aging institutions in order to save money. It is not the single fault of a particular political ideology or politician but, rather, a reflection for both good and and bad of a changing society.

I wouldn't discount medication, but alas, some of these "wonder" drugs actually cause violent impulses in some individuals. We don't have a system in which people who are having medications adjusted can be kept in a safe facility while their brain chemistry is changing--and we do lose people because of this. 72 hr. lockups when it can take weeks for a medication to show effective or not doesn't make any sense.

Again. This is the classic argument of take everyone's rights away to protect ME, but NEVER take my rights away.

We need a safer place to live. No one disagrees. We cannot do it by restricting rights or having counsels of people decide what others ought to do.

... and Conservatives need to start admitting doing nothing will not change protect us from the next national tragedy.

We already have a HUGE government that can not pay for itself. More government is not the answer here. You're barking up the wrong tree, once again letting your emotion take control and using a tragedy for your own personal political gain.

http://www.nycrimecommission.org/initiative1-shootings.php

It's not emotion. It's fact. The only reason to do nothing is political. It's time to wake up. That is reality at the door.

This moderate independent will assert that the tone of the dialogue needs to change in a positive direction. People who are ill are citizens too and need our care. They are not moochers/people who want free stuff. As long as we continue to be insensitive community citizens, the problems will continue.

CC??? "... your kind" ???

Do you know how you sound, Young?

@FTT

I'm 47 and I carry concealed every day for nut jobs. Do you have a problem with that?

I am uncomfortable with no military or police carrying serious tools that can do serious harm. We no longer live in the Wild wild west. We don't live in a post apocolyptic world. Red Dawn is just a movie. More bullets flying around bother me. It does. It's not a personal thing. But it makes me uncomfortable.

Most every other state has allowed concealed carry for years without experiencing 'more bullets flying around'.

For all anyone knows, we could indeed be living in a post apocolyptic world come December 22nd...

FTF, you seem to be implying that more guns automatically means a more dangerous society but that's simply not the case. Take Northern Wisconsin, for example. There are more guns in homes in rural areas than in the city of Milwaukee, yet Milwaukee has 20 times the number of murders. It's who has the guns, not the fact that guns exist. I'm more worried about the wrong person being armed and me being unable to defend myself. There's a reason most shooting rampages happen at schools, churches and malls and not at police stations.

YC - I am ok with that.

It's better than what you are trying to be... which, for the record, I think is a whole lot of bluster and zero actual machismo that you claim to be. I think you make it all up to compensate for your sorry existence.

Its okay Troy, I am used to sticking up for the wimps and sissys on the playground. Its how my parents raised me.

Not an issue of "changing" the Constitution but in reviewing the 2nd Amendment as it is actually written. The NRA has parsed a few selected words and pervertied the intent of the 2nd Amendment for too long and too many people have died as a result. Time for some common sense.

The National Guard cannot possibly be interpreted as the whole constitutional militia encompassed by the Second Amendment; if for no other reason, the fact that guardsmen are prohibited by law from keeping their own military arms. Instead, these firearms are owned and annually inventoried by the Federal government, and are kept in armories under lock and key.

The Second Amendment was meant to accomplish two distinct goals.... First, it was meant to guarantee the individual's right to have arms for self-defense and self-preservation.... These privately owned arms were meant to serve a larger purpose as well...and it is the coupling of these two objectives that has caused the most confusion. The customary American militia necessitated an armed public...the militia …the body of the people.… The argument that today's National Guardsmen, members of a select militia, would constitute the only persons entitled to keep and bear arms has no historical foundation.

Bren is a part of the many low information ignorant Obama voters who have never read of the origins of the Bill of Rights.

The supreme court says you are dead wrong Bren. But glad to know you support murdering 1 million children per year.

Yes, you are absolutely right.

@Sun

Good point. I've been trying to make the point elsewhere that many people that our culture considers mentally ill are simply people that experience distress in our modern cultural environment. Alternately, those same people may flourish in an environment that would cause us distress. It is a modern development (a historical anomaly) that boys over the age of 8 do not know with almost absolute certainty what they will do for the rest of their life and how they will fit into society. For most of human history, the 20 year old male had already been hunting or working in the field for 12 years, submerged in a community that knew everything about everyone that was part of that community.

My point is that our modern environment may be just as bad for some people as solitary confinement would be for the average person.

Those are some really good points Luke, I hadn't thought about how our modern society doesn't really fit what our ancestors had to deal with. Their resources were limited and options few but they knew their roles in society. Technology is not always a good thing. Expectations are so high yet not everyone is suited to some of the rigors of life. I hate to pin things on parents but when a naturally fragile person is pushed to be something they are not naturally suited to be, that can cause problems. Couple that with coddling and over protecting of todays youth can lead to some not being able to handle things that were within normal expectations even 50 years ago.

Thanks for the thoughtful blog post. While some folks will never play well with others, this post does far more to promote a reasonable and rational conversation on a vital issue than that of Mr. Patzfahl and his wanting to simply arrest people who buy guns.

Mental health issues and adjusting to constant bombardment of external stimuli are vital issues that if properly addressed can do more to address many of our social ills and will eliminate more tragedies than knee-jerk legislation. However, it will take hard work and we as a society don't always want to do that.

There are many modalities that can quiet an overactive fight-or-flight response, and we should be teaching simple techniques to our kids. A kindergartener can learn how to do mindfulness meditation, for example. Of course, someone who is mentally ill has a whole host of other problems going on but I do have to wonder if regular practices for reducing anxiety and depression were a part of American culture, we might see less stress and anxiety overall. And, perhaps, we might also see fewer irrational, limbic-brain driven responses to perceived danger, such as keeping heavy weaponry in the home when someone in the the household has mental health issues.