monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Quote:

He’s off the streets. You can’t arrest him, I guess, because he hasn’t done anything, but you know he’s like a boiler ready to explode, right?” the president said. “You can’t put him in jail, I guess, because he hasn’t done anything. But in the old days, you would put him into a mental institution.”

Trump also said that governments began closing institutions because of costs, and that such decisions were made by some of the governors in that room.

“We’re going to have to start talking about mental institutions, because a lot of folks in this room closed their mental institutions also,” he said. “We have no halfway. We have nothing between a prison and leaving him at his house, which we can’t do anymore. So I think you folks have to start thinking about that.”

That's bullshit.

There is a Florida law against threatening people and he did just that.

Why is it so important for you to excuse the failures of our government?

Law enforcement could have enforced the Baker Act.

Quote:

Criteria are not met simply because a person has mental illness, appears to have mental problems, takes psychiatric medication, or has an emotional outburst.

Criteria are not met simply because a person refuses voluntary examination.

Criteria are not met if there are family members or friends that will help prevent any potential and present threat of substantial harm.


Moments in the past, when an individual may have considered harming themselves or another, do not qualify the individual as meeting the criteria. ("Near" means close, short, or draws near.)[5]'

Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said a Florida resident can be involuntarily committed "15 times within the last month" and still legally buy a semi-automatic assault rifle like the one used in last week's massacre at a Broward high school.

Gualtieri said it's "wrong, it's erroneous, it's false" that if confessed mass murderer Nicolas Cruz had been Baker Acted, he couldn't get a gun. Those weapons should be confiscated by police while safeguarding a patient's legal rights, he said.

The sheriff also said there's no such thing as a background check on Florida gun buyers. Gun shops check for two things: a buyer's qualifying felony or a court adjudication that the buyer is mentally ill.

"It's not a background check. It's very limited and narrow in scope," Gualtieri said.

"nearly all but two involved routine calls from [Cruz's] mother relating to parenting issues (her sons were fighting; her son was banging pool equipment against the house; etc)" and none involved "arrestable offences."

But some of the calls paint a darker picture than routine parenting issues, including instances in which Linda Cruz said Nikolas threw her against the wall for taking away his Xbox, and a report by a school counselor that "Cruz was alleged to have possibly ingested gasoline prior in an attempt to commit suicide and is cutting himself. Cruz indicated he wished to purchase a gun for hunting and was in possession of items concerning hate related communications/ symbols."

In these two incidents, mental health counselors advised that Cruz did not meet the criteria for the Baker Act.

From what we know, the Obama-era rule would not have applied to the Parkland shooter

In Florida, where the Parkland shooting took place, the state’s involuntary commitment law, the Baker Act, took 195,000 people into custody for mental health evaluations the 2015-2016 fiscal year, less than 2 percent of whom were ultimately deemed a danger to self or others, and committed. (Many advocates fear that the Baker Act is overused, particularly for children.)

Most news reports have failed to note that, based on the best information available to us, the Parkland shooter would not have been identified by either definition of mental illness: He did not seem to have a representative payee or have a prior history of court-ordered involuntary commitment.

Democrats just flipped two state legislative seats in Connecticut and New Hampshire


Philip Spagnuolo wins, marking the 40th special election seat Democrats have picked up since Trump’s election.

According to an extremely useful comprehensives spreadsheet compiled by Daily Kos, across 70 special elections in 2017, Democrats ran 10 points ahead of Clinton and 7 points ahead of Obama’s 2012 results. Those numbers have accelerated into 2018. Across 16 races, Democrats are running 27 points ahead of Clinton and 15 points ahead of Barack Obama.

Historically speaking, special election results usually are somewhat predictive of midterm general election outcomes, though I don’t think anyone believes it’s realistic for Democrats to obtain a nationwide 27-point swing relative to Clinton’s numbers.

February 27, 2018 07:06 PM

Updated 1 hour 42 minutes ago

WASHINGTON
Last week, Marco Rubio stared into the eyes of a father who lost his daughter during the nation’s deadliest high school shooting and made an announcement: Young adults should not be able to purchase guns.

“I absolutely believe that in this country, if you are 18 years of age you should not be able to buy a rifle. I will support a law that takes that right away,” Rubio said during an intense town hall event with Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students, parents and alumni.

But one of Rubio’s own bills, which he has introduced twice, would overturn an assault weapons ban and legalize gun sales for young adults in the nation’s capital, allowing 18- to 21-year-olds in Washington, D.C. to purchase weapons like the AR-15 used in the Parkland shooting if federal law doesn’t change.

The Florida Republican introduced the Second Amendment Enforcement Act in 2015 and again in 2017 that would drastically change the District of Columbia’s gun laws. After introducing the bill for the first time in 2015 while seeking the Republican presidential nomination, Rubio’s National Rifle Association’s grade went from a B+ to an A.

apparently Mr. Rubio can suck and blow

Further, when Ford discovered that a high percentage of Ford Pinto's gas tanks would explode after a rear-end accident (and decided not to tell anyone about it because recalls would be more expensive that settling with the families of the occupants who now looked like strips of bacon) there was not a single Ford exec or lawyer present and tossing in a match.

What rights?

They work to uphold a certain interpretation of the 2nd Amendment which confers a single right to keep and bear arms.

What other "rights" are they protecting?

No, you're not qualified.

The word rings hollow in your mouth. It rings like the accepted, embraced servitude to a false god.

They say that obeying a law by choice is liberty,

but did you really chose to think that the lives of children ought to be sacrificed to a particular piece of individual freedom (the right to own and carry guns),

or were you born into a society or milieu that conditionned you to think so?

How would you even be able to weight or compare these two things: the safety of kids vs the right to bear arms?

An amendment to a Florida bill that would have banned assault-style rifles like the one used in the Parkland shooting failed in a vote by a Florida senate subcommittee. Disappointed demonstrators in orange shirts who are pushing for gun safety, pointed their finger at the lawmakers and chanted "shame" and "vote them out."

he'll be claiming to have solved this issue and the one chance we may have had of getting someone to really face down the NRA will be lost.

He’s said we may have to take on the NRA. He’s outlined about four changes in gun laws that the NRA has fought stridently.

IF he continues to use his bully pulpit to affect these changes, will you credit him?

This is why I’ve harped on Obama and that criminal band of geriatric bloodsuckers in Congress.
They did nothing.

I want to know why.

I think the power of the NRA goes deeper than the Republicans.

It seems like it would take a powerful bipartisan effort to avoid doing something in light of the school shooting gallery we’ve witnessed in recent years.