From the great movie “Miracle On 34th Street”, this is Santa, locked up in New York’s Bellevue psych ward, a perfectly believable situation in those days…
These days, we cheerfully accept the fact that government fails us in every possible way; highways are potholed, schools fail to educate, veterans get lousy health care, the Department of Motor Vehicles and the IRS are horribly mismanaged, it’s all one big disgusting mess, ain’t it?
But there is one thing the government used to do, and easily could do again, and that’s to protect citizens from lunatics. Believe it or not, we actually used to lock people up if they were judged to be a threat to the public, can you imagine?
There were abuses, of course; family members who would benefit from the committing of another family member to a psychiatric hospital would go ahead and sign papers and… off you went! Sometimes, merely being a bit eccentric, like Santa Claus, for instance, was enough for the state to come in and grab you!
But starting in the 1960’s and 70’s, the states adopted a much higher standard for confining someone to a mental hospital against their will. Gradually, almost no one got locked up, no matter how clearly crazy they were. So today, instead of hospitals, insane people live in our streets and prisons, what an improvement!
Which brings us to this clown:
This lunatic did everything he could to put government on notice that he was a clear and present danger. What did we do? Gave him back his gun and said bye-bye, as he flew off to Florida to murder some nice people. Great job!
When an individual makes it abundantly clear he’s a danger to the public, he can be confined to a mental institution indefinitely. That’s been established by numerous Supreme Court decisions, but the states won’t do it…. What on earth are they waiting for?
Greenwich Bored And Razed 