Really?

How would we know who���������s mentally ill?

Should anyone who sees a therapist have to register as mentally ill? Might this discourage people from seeing mental health help should they need it?

Should therapists be required to report their patients? If so, would it be all patients? Or would it be only those that the therapist deems ���������dangerous���������? What if the therapist is wrong? What if someone has seen more than therapist and the therapists disagree? And how does all of this affect doctor/patient confidentiality?

What if someone did in fact have serious mental problems, but overcame them? How do they get off the list? Or could they ever get off the list?

If we did prohibit someone from purchasing a gun because they had a negative report in some ���������National Mental Health��������� database, how do we justify that constitutionally? That would be denying someone their civil liberties even though they haven���������t committed a crime���������just because we���������re afraid they MIGHT commit a crime.

And if we go that route, where does it stop? Do we deny those same people drivers licenses because they might run someone over? Do we restrict them from public swimming pools because they might drown someone? Do we restrict them from voting because they might vote ���������crazy���������?

Every time there is any kind of tragedy it is a knee-jerk (but very natural) reaction to say ���������How can we prevent this in the future���������. But the truth is, sad as it may sound, some times the only answer is ���������we can���������t��������� or even ���������we shouldn���������t because the cost to society would be too high���������.

Might some kind of law enforcement database of mentally ill people have stopped this shooting? Maybe. If Loughner had been reported. Then again, maybe not. He might have just stolen a gun or bought one on the black market or made a pipe bomb instead.

But even if some such law and some such database had been in effect and had prevented this shooting, at what cost to a free society?

We always think of veterans when we talk about people dying to preserve freedom. We use expressions like ���������Freedom isn���������t free���������.

Unfortunately, sometimes it���������s also civilians who die to preserve freedom. They die because we have a choice. A choice between a free society and an un-free one. We can have a society where we have privacy, where we have liberties that can���������t be taking away from us if we haven���������t broken the law, but where sometimes bad things will happen to good people. Or we can have a society where our privacy, our liberties, our rights are abdicated in the hope that this additional power given to the government will be used to keep us safe from harm.

Historically, governments with more power have CAUSED their citizens far more harm than they have prevented.