Two discussions we really need to be having post-Aurora:

[Skidmore]

1) re-authorization of the assault weapons ban and enforcement of existing gun sales and possession laws.

2) the structuring and FUNDING of a working system for the diagnosis and comprehensive care of those with mental illness to replace the misuse off the prison system as holding pens for people with untreated mental illness. This does not mean that everyone ends up on a locked ward.

We need both. The trade off for gun ownership should not have to be periodic massacres by someone who was able to obtain unlimited supplies of high powered weapons through sales networks set up to sidestep the laws.

Reagan initiated the dismantling of the mental health system. Today states are finishing it.

[Fresh_Start]

1. guns should be registered

gun owners need to be licensed with periodic license renewal reevaluation

[HereSince1628]

2. Re #2 Structure is there in most cases, funding might be better but funding is available

even for the poor.

Having taught at variously sized Universities, the mental health care needed for students to get assessed and directed to treatment is generally available. If I were asked to bet, I'd bet the e University of Colorado, and his undergraduate university in California had mental health counseling available to its students, and there is a good chance that the initial counseling would have been free. Structure present? Check. Funding available? Check.

I don't know if Holmes did or did not seek mental health treatment at anytime in his life, including his time as a grad student.

I don't know if others who knew Homes ever tried to have him detained for evaluation and possible treatment. But, the legal power to do that (structure) is in place across most of the country.

I don't know if the essential precursors to the process of mental health evaluation--entry into a clinic ever succeeded.

But looking at the national situation in the US it is apparent that the availability (structure and funding) of mental health care is just one problem. The perceived barriers and fears that discourage people from seeking treatment voluntarily and that discourage family and friends from pushing for voluntary treatment or involuntary detention for evaluation are too often a consequence of an awareness of the social consequences applied to the mentally ill by our society.

Creating structure and the funding for mental health facilities isn't going to address that. Only broad-based community education and social change will create a community climate in which seeking mental health treatment carries no social consequences.