Alleged Colorado gunman's doctor reached police before rampage: ABC

[slackmaster]

4. I have no solution to the problem of violent psychotics who haven't been adjudicated as mentally...

...incompetent.

There are a whole lot of people out there who have mental illnesses. Some have been formally diagnosed, I suspect most have not been and may never be. But until a person has been officially found by a court of law to be mentally incompetent, those people all enjoy the same set of rights as do the rest of us.

No matter what laws and legal processes are in place, no matter how much arbitrary power we give to police and to mental health professionals, an occasional whack job is going to slip through the cracks. Our system of government is in a constant state of checking and balancing government authority vs. individual liberty.

I think the best we can do is all try to look out for one another. If you see someone who you think might be having a mental health problem, do whatever you can to help. But ultimately people have the right to refuse treatment.