Hinckley to be released

even flow - question mark

oftenreading said:

even flow - question mark said:

oftenreading said:

pjhawks said:

even flow - question mark said:

An insane guy, free, in a country where getting guns is like shooting fish in a barrel. Makes perfect sense.

so do you not believe that people who suffer with mental illness should ever be allowed to be free again? I take it as a rational punishment that has been served which speaks directly to how fair our system can be. how many other countries in the world would someone attempt to assassinate the leader and not be executed themselves? for all the bitching people do about America doesn't this speak well of us?

Personally, I don't see any "punishment" is necessary if actions are directly due to a medical condition over which the individual did not have control. That's the way the law sees it as well, at least where I live. Psychosis is a neurological condition. How many people would genuinely want to punish someone who had a stroke while driving, plowed into a crowd of people, and killed several of them? Not many of us would want to see that person in jail serving multiple life sentences for murder, even though their medical condition caused them to kill people. Yet many want to see someone who injures or kills someone directly related to psychosis jailed for life, or given the death penalty.

To equate somebody who is not able to function in society without the use of mood altering drugs to keep them from going off the deep end and somebody having a stroke behind the wheel of a car is a bit of a stretch. Ain't it?

No. It's not a stretch at all. That's exactly my point. Both people have neirological conditions that affected their behaviour.

Unless you are saying that psychosis is not a "real" medical condition?

Another example for you? Diabetes can affect your behaviour if your blood sugar isn't well controlled. Diabetics need medication to manage their condition. Should they be allowed in society?

Now diabetics I can be on board with. The people I've known that had strokes, ah, how do I say this, but it just happened. They weren't on drugs for stroke prevention. The dude here at work who had one at seven to the uncle who had one at eighty.

And for the point of being rehabilitated. Again, if you've killed somebody due to voices in your head. I'd rather you have the new and improved person as your neighbour then mine.