As we try to understand the tragic events in Tuscon and contemplate how we can help prevent them in the future we come to a fork in the road.
First we have to decide which fork to take, at least on the first venture down this road. One fork aims to control guns by preventing or restricting the sale of the more dangerous semi-automatics and high capacity magazines. The other fork leads to identifying those who are likely to commit such atrocities and flagging their records so they will be denied the right to purchase firearms.
There are serious Constitutional issues with either tack. But as we have seen at Columbine, Virginia Tech, and now Tuscon, people saw this coming, or at least the real possibility of such actions. And yet authorities, school authorities in this case, failed to take any action to prevent the harm to the public and to the individuals committing such horrible acts.
We need to seriously take a look at the privacy accorded to medical records when the patient involved represents a possible danger to themselves or others. We also need some mechanism, at the state level, to identify and record such danger. We also need to have a mechanism for people to regain their full firearms rights when and if they are no longer a danger.
How many times must we watch these tragedies and the accompanying finger pointing and blame assignment ?
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