...'idea'.

It is beneath contempt.

EDIT: In fact, it is so incredibly bad that I'm going to assume I fell for a good troll. 9/10, would read again.

But you knew that.

There's only one real solution, of course, and that's stricter federal gun control -- something supported by 90% of the country but, because of our corrupt political system, impossible to achieve.

It is also shocking and frightening in the extreme that such a plan could be offered by someone who purports to be a Democrat.

hopefully a hat could hide it .

well done...

I'll have to remember that one and use it sometime.

Do any of you know what the Democratic Party is?

I can't imagine ever praising any preachers for any reason. Could you point out where I did that?

and about gay people.

I'm not sure that being well adjusted to American society in its current incarnation is particularly indicative of actual mental health.

Of course, I am a short, fat, funny looking attorney, happily married and no criminal history of any kind, but I am kinda odd.

...one who has Asperger's and the other with PDD -- I say take your suggestion and shove it. This just adds to the ignorance and stigma that these kids already have to deal with because you do realize, of course, that a lot of kids who meet your crude standards of behavior -- as judged BY THEIR PEERS -- lie somewhere along the autism spectum.

Asking kids to rate their peers? Are you kidding me?

But I guess if you want to see the preteen and teen suicide rates spike -- then go for it.

Jesus. PLEASE delete this.

On EDIT: One more thing. Calling mentally ill people "crazy" is just as perjorative as any other slur directed at a minority. I suggest you educate yourself before you put your ignorance on further full display.

I have a son on the spectrum, Asperger's, and although he really is high functioning, in junior high he'd have faired quite badly on this proposal. Meanwhile, he is the least dangerous person out there.

It's my personal opinion that we need to confiscate all guns (I understand that you may disagree) since it is the guns, and the possession of guns that is the problem. No gun, no problem.

Interesting question.

Should those who are taking psychiatric medication or have been diagnosed with mental illness, be put into a no gun buy database?

I believe if a doctor diagnosed someone as schizophrenic there is no way for the government to know when they purchase a gun unless they indicate so on the application.

The data of peoples medication is available, it's closely tracked by the pharma industry, there could be a class of drugs that prohibit people from owning guns.

Just some thoughts, on a more efficient way to identify those who might not be appropriate as gun owners.

Nearly all anti-social, misfit youth go on to live normal, productive lives without ever committing a serious crime. You would profile them all over the actions of a few? That's the definition of behavioral profiling, and it's a horrendous notion.

But the bigger problem is that you're applying legal punishments to people based on the opinions of their peers. How do you think a bunch of uber-Mormon high schoolers in small-town Utah are going to rate the pot smoking gay kid who just moved into town? The problem with "anti-social" is that, by definition, it means someone who doesn't agree with or follow social norms. Because there is NO CONSISTENT SOCIAL NORM in America, it would be impossible to apply something like this consistently across the country.

There are still plenty of small towns in America where the simple act of not attending church services every Sunday will get you labeled as an anti-social bad influence. The Kim Davis's of the world don't just appear out of nowhere, but are products of their environment. Would you have wanted Kim Davis and her peers judging YOU in high school?

Let me get this straight.

Like it or not, the second amendment is still a part of the Constitution. So you would be willing to deny a citizen one of his/her constitutional rights for life, without benefit of so much as any accusation that s/he ever did anything wrong, let alone without a trial and conviction of some manner of wrongdoing, but instead because a bunch of teenagers thought s/he was "creepy" and/or a "loser" when s/he was in high school. Really?

Check out the fifth and sixth amendments to the constitution and see if you still think this would "pass constitutional muster" or that any official, elected or otherwise, would "be OK with it. Because forget "constitutional muster", that doesn't even pass the laugh test.

Everybody says we have to do something. That we need commonsense gun laws. That we need to identify potentially dangererous people and prevent them from obtaining firearms. That is the whole point of the background check, to prevent dangerous people from getting guns. This would be common sense gun regulation.

How the fuck else are you going to identify dangerous people before they do something dangerous?

This is not a good idea

the cops pulling over black people just because they are black?
That is the same thing, PROFILING.

No. This is not a good idea.

There is only one solution? And that is getting junior high schoolers to decide who is "crazy" enough to lose privileges for life?

"After all, who would observe and recognize the "warning signs" better than their peers?" Maybe teachers, counselors, other adults they are in contact with on a regular basis and are trained at recognizing "warning signs" better than random 13 year olds?

" At least it is a way to do something that could pass constitutional muster and every elected representative should be OK with it. "

HOW does this pass constitutional muster? And do you really think "every elected representative should be ok with" letting 13 yr olds decide who needs bullying and who doesn't?

but given that gun regulation is an impossibility, and would be an intolerable infringement of personal and constitutional liberty (so I've been informed on this board), your idea makes as much sense as anything else that I've seen.

Of course, the other alternative is to simply accept the occasional mass shooting as a fact of life, and the price that we pay to live in a "free society". That may be the best "solution".

Rather than relying on peers to identify "weirdos"

through your fair and thoughtful process--should be humanely killed and served up in a healthy, balanced, school lunch program...

Only way that I could laugh at this OP.



I'll take Thoreau on the half shell please...

You win the thread.

Serious Mental Illness: A New Block Grant Priority

Mental health treatment practitioners have, over the years, observed that most individuals who have a serious mental illness (such as bipolar disorder, major depression, and schizophrenia) typically experience the first signs of illness during adolescence or early adulthood. Yet there are often long intervals between the onset of symptoms and diagnosis, referral, and treatment. In response, Congress has directed SAMHSA to require that states set aside 5 percent of their Community Mental Health Services Block Grant to address these needs.

The new set-aside is one of many new components included in Congressional budget appropriations for Fiscal Year 2014. The effort aims to support “evidence-based programs that address the needs of individuals with early serious mental illness, including psychotic disorders.”

Early intervention strategies are seen as increasingly important because they reduce the likelihood of long-term disability that people with severe mental illness often experience. The goal is to help these individuals lead fulfilling, independent, and productive lives, reduce the crises that may accompany more advanced mental illness, and ultimately reduce the financial burden on public systems.

For example, a first-break of serious mental illness in adolescence could cause disruptions in school, strained friendships and other relationships, and isolation. If this episode is left unaddressed, academic and professional careers could be delayed, independence could be hard to achieve, and recovery may remain elusive. With the implementation of early intervention strategies, mental health concerns can be identified earlier and supportive treatment can be made available. For a young adult, this not only helps them to keep their lives on track, but makes it possible to maintain supportive relationships while avoiding health risk behaviors like self-injury.

The Mental Health Services Block Grant is allocated to states and jurisdictions to support community-based mental health programs. SAMHSA also administers the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant. Together, these block grants are used by states to provide prevention, treatment, and recovery support programs that supplement Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance. Both block grants contain specific congressionally guided set-asides that target specific subpopulations or types of service. Those receiving block grants are required to expend and report on the portion of funds that meets or exceeds the amount of the set-aside.
Effective Interventions

Recognizing that similar first episode psychosis treatment programs have been effectively used in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, Congress directed the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to assist SAMHSA in in identifying evidence-based treatment models to present to states. The new five percent set-aside in the Mental Health Services Block Grant is designed to help states integrate these models so that early identification and support can take place.

Block grant recipients are required to use the set-aside funds to establish or expand evidence-based treatments. The evidence-based interventions focus on adolescents and young adults (ages 15 to 30) who have experienced an onset of psychotic symptoms during the past three years or less.

Results from the NIMH-funded research initiative, Recovery After an Initial Schizophrenia Episode (RAISE), suggest that mental health providers in a variety of disciplines can learn and adopt the components of coordinated specialty care to engage and treat persons in the early stages of psychotic illness. “Coordinated Specialty Care” (CSC) is a model treatment program designed primarily for adolescents and young adults, and it encompasses a team-based, multi-component approach to diagnosing and treating first episode psychosis. CSC consists of assertive case management, individual or group psychotherapy, supported employment and education services, family education and support, and possibly low doses of anti-psychotic medications. These services are also closely coordinated with primary health care.

In addition, CSC embraces a recovery-oriented approach that, when appropriate, engages the individual’s close friends, family members, or peer supports as active participants. The model program creates an effective therapeutic alliance that permits the individual to engage in day-to-day activities as quickly as possible.

OnTrackNY, one of several SAMHSA-funded state model programs, developed by the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University, is a program that works with individuals between the ages of 16 and 30 who recently reported experiencing psychotic symptoms. The program’s foundation is a shared decision-making approach in which individuals work actively with the treatment team to identify goals for employment, school, and inter-personal relationships. In keeping with the CSC model, OnTrackNY includes the components of cognitive-behavioral approaches, integrated treatment for mental health and substance use problems, and family education and support, among others.
Implications for States

Under the new set-aside, states and jurisdictions were required to revise their two-year block grant plans to include a proposed approach to addressing early serious mental illness(es) and a description of how funding will be used to support appropriate evidence-based services. States may have enhanced existing programs, or developed a new demonstration program if no CSC services currently exist. The state plan will required a needs assessment that documents why a particular target population has been chosen, what the planned activities are, and the proposed budget.

States may also use the new set-aside funds to build capacity for offering specialty care services. These services may include extending community outreach beyond emergency care services; expanding the number of specialty programs; establishing referral mechanisms with primary care physicians, schools, and child welfare agencies; including public education efforts, and instituting in-state trainings.

Webinars were held earlier this year and provide an overview of evidence-based approaches to treatment for individuals for first episode psychosis.
Resources

Evidence-Based Treatments for First Episode Psychosis Summary Paper
Recovery After an Initial Schizophrenia Episode (RAISE)


http://www.samhsa.gov/samhsaNewsLetter/Volume_22_Number_4/serious_mental_illness_block_grant_priority/

helps some of these young men before a tragedy occurs.

The OP wants junior and high schoolers to diagnose who will become "crazy" enough to shoot up a school at any time during their lives.

problem so they can offer help and information to those with the problems.

Does this appear as unfair to you as it does to me?!

A persons personality is a lot more complex then how they act - Your 'test' would give how they act, but not why they act like that.

This would just serve to stigmatize some groups of children even more then they already are.

Though it might violate the constitution, but there is some argument, with drinking, voting and driving ages.

Increase the age to own a gun to 30. That would cut out women too, as the prohibition could not be limited to males due to equal protection of the laws. But make the age higher than the age when they are most likely to go nuts.

and the RKBA is constitutionally-protected, unlike driving and drinking (and with a voting age of 18), your minimum age of 30 to own any gun has some serious problems, to say nothing of its lack of political feasibility.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/311


I believe some states permit rifle and shotgun ownership at 18, but don't allow handgun ownership until 21. Something along these lines is probably the closest you could hope to achieve.

and for hunters.

Of course I'm talking in a world where the Second is repealed or interpreted to mean militia only. Just floating an idea that would cut back on these crazy mass shootings by disturbed young men.

I honestly can't understand the idea of just continuing to let that happen as a price of people having the right to bear arms. It's not the 18th century.

I was friends with a lot of those who would have probably been categorized that way by the "popular" kids. That was back in high school days. They're all fine. though unfortunately, at least four of the "popular" kids committed suicide.

And seriously, being a "loner" as you say should disqualify someone from their rights?

Oh dear, poor Thoreau. Went off on his own to live in the woods.

I'm gonna go ahead and rate this as one of the "creepiest" posts I've ever seen on DU.

Yikes.

I'm really hoping you left the sarcasm smilie off your OP.

Can we also take away their right to vote? Who wants creepy loners voting anyway?

If you are still thinking and acting like you did in high school, please out yourself!

eta: great post!

That is pure totalitarianism. I'd even say it's downright facist. Scapegoat the margins of society. Anything, anything but limit guns. Anything but address the crisis of manhood in modern American. No, we need to lock up the crazies. Yep, it's all the fault of the powerless and discarded. Enjoy your two minute hate. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

my faith in the posters on DU is somewhat restored.

I have to run off to an art show now but will be back later.

But I notice that no one seems to have a good solution to the problem of identifying dangerously mentally ill people before they do something dangerous. And identifying those people and putting them into a database is the only way background checks will do anything to solve the problem. What to do?

What a great idea!

most of them anyway. Pretty fucking simple solution sounds to me like

that this predictor of teen adjustment problems from preschool age was a peer-based sociometric measure rather than any standardized assessment

back in the day, I was a loner, sad and had a hard time with everything. To have my peers ranking me on a social acceptance scale would've made me feel even worse, I could not imagine what that would do to a kids already shaky self esteem. And who knows if students would even take this seriously, I mean teenagers could easily think this is some kind of joke and rank someone they had a fight with as "creepy".

The most Fascist thing I've ever read on DU.

would be to require references from 3 people who would share liability for any misuse of the firearm.

Not everyone is pre-criminal because their peers -- the least professional or qualified to be profilers -- say they're weird.

It wouldn't hold up. But to make parents who are gun owners apply for and pass a national parent/child gun safety training course -- attached to DMV's in all fifty states -- would get some good baseline data down on future gun use by young "crazies."

murderers.".

Aside from that huge issue, are you seriously saying you want hormonal teenagers to decide who should never be able to buy a gun, ever? Seriously?

I mean, seriously? WTF.

it bears consideration. Any such system must also take into account that these mass shooters are almost exclusively male.

This makes more sense than other suggestions that I've seen, such as tracking down and locking up anyone with "mental illness".

It certainly makes more sense than anything so liberty destroying as regulating the commerce in and possession of manufactured metal objects whose primary purpose is killing.

Your critics on this thread simply don't understand the meaning of "liberty" in the American context.

popularity is nonsensical.

I will agree that " tracking down and locking up anyone with "mental illness"' is also nonsensical.

Giving teenagers the ability to diagnose threats by popularity makes more sense, in any sort of "liberty" way, than regulating commerce and possession of guns? Are you serious or is this satire?

In the context of a culture where manufactured killing devices have "rights" and people don't, and where "sensible" gun control is out of reach and "unconstitutional", it makes perfect sense.

Given that I've been repeatedly informed on this board that any form of "meaningful" gun control is impossible, unconstitutional, and wouldn't work anyway, we need to be open to alternative approaches to preventing these types of heinous events.

I hope this answers your question.

instead of taking away their rights?

for analysis?

I can't believe I'm reading this on a progressive site.

Uh, Yeah.... I'm just trying to figure out if the OP is putting us on, here.

When I was in school. I think it was in junior high but certainly by high school. They were called SLAM BOOKS. Why? Because it was where kids let it all hang out. Each page had a person's name at the top where classmates were encouraged to say whatever mean thing they could say about someone. Especially things they could not help. Slam them. Acne? Zing 'em. Big nose? Give them a cruel nickname. Buck teeth? Mock them by sticking out your own perfect teeth. Shy, insecure or new kid in town? Make up stuff. Say they sure are weird or creepy.

The other reason it was called a slam book was because they KNEW IT WAS WRONG for many reasons and they would slam it shut if a teacher came close or a classmate that they didn't want to see the contents.

It was a horrible, cruel, divisive thing and your "solution" sounds just about as mean and insensitive. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and grant that maybe you didn't think it all the way through to some of the unintended consequences of such a plan. At least I hope that is what happened.

Because...um, who knows. Don't ask childish gunners to make sense.

... and a sound analytical mind...

You know who I think of?

High Schoolers...

Seriously though... What the fuck is wrong with you?

Certainly isn't going to cause the paranoid and potentially defensive ones to act and feel more so.

Actually, the Columbine killers were well-liked, contrary to some of the myth.

Your idea has too many things wrong with it to list, unless of course you meant it as "Swiftian Satire", so to speak.

the harebrained idea in the first place-much less calling it "the only" solution. Wtf?

I am very happy (and frankly, surprised) by the replies.