Me: Mental health worker, but not shrink or PhD.
Okay, the key to this whole thing is ethics - balance of rights and responsibilities. We have an intuitive understanding that when any right is taken from an innocent person, a corresponding responsibility is also taken. For instance, children don't have the right to buy guns, or work jobs. But children therefore don't have the responsibility for defence or to buy groceries or pay rent for themselves: those responsibilities are taken care of by the parent, guardian or state as needed. Similarly, when a senior driver can no longer drive due to infirmities, they give up a right (to drive) but we as a society make sure that they have those van services to go shopping and get to medical appointments, if a family member can't do it. If they lose the right to drive, they no longer have the responsibility to do it. Society takes that responsibility, to keep the roads and them safe.
The key to our mental health response has to follow those same guidelines: If an innocent person loses their constitutional right to defend themselves, the system must do it for them. That means oversight and protection. We must tolerate nothing short of that.
Notice that this means taxpayer dollars, for every individual who has given up their right to bear arms. This is exactly as it must be. It will work, because the number of truly insane Cho or Loughner types who need the support in perpetuity is actually very small. The number of people who will need the services for a short period of time (maybe for feeling suicidal after a hard blow in life) but stabilise quickly will be larger, with smart insurance planning it can work fiscally. This is an open door for everybody, which people can regain their full status as gun owning sane individuals after going through. Only those receiving supports (thus losing responsibilities) ever sacrifice rights. Those who can't pull it together. They receive the overt supports they desperately need, and the whole thing is viewed as positive by members of society, nobody is afraid to seek supports for their loved ones or friends.
The other key is that guidelines for treatment come down from the top, an adaptive statistical algorithm for minimising risk, which updates whenever somebody released acts out dangerously or lethally. No blame for shrinks who follow the guidelines, period..
The good system described, now lets look at the bad system: What posts like the OP are in fear of.
Its well documented that in the Soviet Union, as well as other totalitarian regimes, mental health was used to suppress political dissidents. Lets look at the anatomy of that kind of system:
The first thing you need to do is get rid of the ethical balance of giving up responsibilities for giving up rights describe above: Tyranny requires innocent targeted individuals give up rights, but also be required to fulfil responsibilities: They are branded as mentally ill without any kind of supports. Their mentally ill status is broadcast to law enforcement, gun stores and others, to the extent that crimes done against them, when reported aren't believed do to their new subhuman status... and once branded they can never get out. People see these wretched individuals walking the streets, screaming, without support and resolve to do anything to keep their friends or loved ones from being one of them, even if they are showing real signs of mental illness. A STACI like system of citizen informants is used to identify potentially "mentally ill" individuals, and shrinks - who are held accountable for the acts of their patients, thus brand every person who comes into their office as mentally ill. Because the state has no obligation to take care of these individuals, no fiscal limits are placed on the numbers of them. 30%, 35%, 45% of the population are eventually branded "mentally ill" if they dare to speak out against the status quo, and their right to bear arms is taken from them. The only oversight of them is covert, making paranoid people more paranoid. Only gun owners who toe the line in every way are permitted to keep their guns - for the large part of the population, they are removed.
So there you go. See the difference between a really positive thing and a really negative thing? Key points for a positive system:
1) Innocent individuals who give up rights also get to give up certain responsibilities.
2) The supports should be a positive thing, which nobody would fear putting somebody they care about into, based on results people can see.
3) Supports you enter in to, but then move beyond and get your rights back, once healing has taken place and you no longer need supports.
4) Supports are overt, not covert.
5) No blame for shrinks, individuals make their own choices shrinks do the best they can based off the science.
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