RUDY SPEAKS OUT ON TUCSON – AT 9:12 A.M. ET:  No one knows more about crime fighting than Rudy Giuliani, the abrasive former mayor of New York, who actually did something about crime while he was mayor, and change the face of the city.  Some say he saved it. 

Rudy is agitated over the fact that the Tucson shooter wasn't forced to get mental help, and Rudy is right.  From The Politico:

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Sunday that the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) by a gunman many view as deranged should prompt more muscular efforts to force individuals with mental illness into treatment.

It's about time someone brought this up.

News accounts in recent days have described a series of bizarre statements by the accused gunman Jared Loughner and detailed how he repeatedly clashed with authorities, particularly at the community college he attended.

"This man was crying out for someone who needed to be treated. He was being told to be treated. People were saying he was bizarre. People were saying he was frightening. A teacher wouldn't be near him without a guard being there," Giuliani said on CBS's "Face The Nation." "Gosh, you would think, at some point along the way he would have been evaluated."

Yeah, but if you say that you can't blame Sarah Palin, which is what too many in the media want to do.

"The most relevant problem was the lack of an ability to deal with what was apparently paranoid schizophrenia or schizophrenia, that should have been treated," the former mayor said. "We're making a big mistake here not changing our procedures with regard to mental illness."

Giuliani suggested that the shooting incident in Tucson, which claimed the lives of six people, may have been the result of policies that date back to the 1960s that protect individual freedom and make it difficult to force mental-health treatment on those who need it.

Absolutely correct.  What happened in Arizona may well have been a direct result of the "mentally ill have rights" movement, an outgrowth of the "reforms" of the 1960s.  There was a major movement, backed by the "enlightened" segments of our society, to make it almost impossible to commit a mentally ill person without his or her consent.  I'm sure some of these cases worked out well enough.  But a number of seriously ill people were dumped on our streets, many became homeless, and some became dangerous.  Free of constant supervision, the mentally ill could easily go off their medication. 

There simply has to be a point when, with reasonable judiciousness, a person who is seen as a threat to himself or society can be confined without his consent.  When you look at the Arizona shooter's history, it is shocking:  Many encounters with the police or with campus security forces; bizarre, frightening behavior; chilling statements.  Yet, he was permitted to roam free, and could even buy a pistol because his history wasn't in the federal database.  If the law had allowed the material to be in that database, he would have been barred from buying the gun that he allegedly used a week ago Saturday.

January 17, 2011