Canada judge: Man not responsible for beheading

[Iain]

Exactly.  I'd hazard a guess that the vast majority of premeditated murders (as well as many other crimes) could not have been carried out by anyone who was altogether mentally well, thus insanity as a defense to such a crime in some cases but not in others, is ridiculous.

I do sleep easier at night knowing that there is no way that anyone who gets to make decisions about mental illness could actually possibly have less knowledge than has been demonstrated in this thread.

[PTK]

A paranoid schizophrenic should definitely be treated as though he isn't a paranoid schizophrenic.

Even though your post was in jest, he should. I don't WANT special treatment apart from anyone else - why should he get it?

[gunsmith]

I do sleep easier at night knowing that there is no way that anyone who gets to make decisions about mental illness could actually possibly have less knowledge than has been demonstrated in this thread.

The people making the decisions here and in Canada are the same people, uber socialist.
They decide we may not carry firearms, they decide to the best treatment for the mentally ill
is to toss them into society, sink or swim.
You'll see these sick people all over San Francisco, peeing on themselves, muttering vulgarities
as they search for food in trash bins. You also smell them as they will go for years without washing
or changing their excrement filled clothes.
Despite being a clear menace to their own well being, uber socialist refuse to address their needs
because of some "right" to die of sickness and disease, alone, in a cardboard box under a freeway.
Once in a while they lash out, they go on some kind of violent spree, almost always in some uber socialist
location like Canada IL, NY, SF, LA etc or Greyhonud bus's 

I want them placed in institutions where they are forced to take their meds, get therapy, and wash
and have a safe place to sleep.
That makes me a horrible person, the dreaded Conservative.

[Iain]

I'm not going to address the slightly bizarre 'liberals are the root of all evil' aspects gunsmith, I like you and I'm not going down that road.

My post wasn't supposed to indicate that I'm happy about the way the mentally ill are treated, or that I would be unhappy with your solution in very many circumstances, and unlike others I'm happy to pay for that in some form, again though - don't think that present solutions are the best ones.

All I meant was that at least those making these decisions understand the basic principle that we've looked at in law for, well a long time - the notion of criminal responsibility. When are we not responsible for our actions through age, mental ill health or whatever. When the voices really are telling you what to do, and you are totally in the grip of that, you just are not criminally responsible for what you do.

Oh yes, in order not to attract self-parodying condemnation I suppose I should finally unnecessarily state the bleeding obvious - the victims family have my sympathies. I understand their upset, but good law does not respond emotively to such upset (see many gun laws) and change basic legal notions about responsibility.