The gun nuts who assassinated a couple of cops in a restaurant and a gun-carrying citizen at Wal-Mart in Las Vegas were so crazy that Cliven Bundy kicked them off the ranch.  In the process, they disproved many of the NRA’s favorite insane propositions for rejecting gun control and calling upon their members to open carry.  The police officers were obviously armed and trained.  The well-intentioned citizen was armed.  They are all sadly dead.

Gun Nuts in Home Depot

We all had a “WTF!?!” response when NRA gun nuts claimed they were exercising their First Amendment rights by bringing their assault rifles into restaurants and stores.  Fortunately, the fear of liability trumped fear of the NRA for major corporations.  It reminded me that solutions aren’t always where we think we’ll find them.  Even the NRA realized its strategy was back-firing.  Pun intended.

Several of my Facebook friends posted an hysterically funny riff by Bill Maher about the NRA’s gun nuts, “Here Comes Gunny Boo Boo.”  I laughed out loud and had an epiphany about the insanity of it all after I read the Jon Stewart meme on Facebook.

Thank you, Fran Bumgarner

It’s like the message of the Wizard of Oz which will be celebrating its 75th anniversary on August 11:  we’ve known it all along.  We don’t need to wait for Congress.  Why?  We are all at risk of bodily harm, and it’s insane.

We ask the police to do a welfare check when we believe someone is suicidal or when a therapist believes a client might hurt someone.  These potential perpetrators are involuntarily committed in a psychiatric ward for three days and are released only after a mental health treatment plan is in place.  In many states, the guns of these potential perpetrators are confiscated.

74 school shootings since Sandy Hook

There are very strong links between shooting rampages, domestic violence, and mental illness.  Yet, our current policy is to rely upon the criminal “justice” system rather than more effective intervention by medical professionals.  The criminal “justice” system typically requires blood on the floor before it intervenes.  The medical profession, fortunately, is oriented toward prevention.

ObamaCares mandates domestic violence screening, but I doubt whether most medical professionals do it.  ObamaCares also requires everyone to have medical insurance.  We no longer need to rely upon our jails to incarcerate those who are threats to themselves or others.  We can now send these folks to hospitals where they hopefully will get the treatment they need.

If you or someone you love is at risk of bodily harm, I hope you will ask for a welfare check.  I believe it will be a more effective route to keep us all safe from domestic violence and shooting rampages.  It will certainly be a more effective way to wake a narcissist up to the fact that mental health counseling is necessary.  A narcissist might be able to bullshit a judge, but mental health professionals have the training to spot them and hold them accountable.