ronadolph 

     "   ' Failure of the American mental health system.' Yes, indeed. Well, not the failure of the Mental Health System exactly, but the lack of one. I was a cop for 35 years on the west coast. Every year we went to the appropriate governmental agency to negotiate, salaries and working conditions. Nearly every year we got pretty much what we wanted, in terms of salaries, training and equipment. But during those years, consistently, the budgets of the mental health systems were cut over and over again. I had a couple of good friends who were Counselors, or Psychiatrists, who lost their jobs during that period. For years I responded to calls for service to deal with people who were clearly in need of mental health services and again and again watched as those very same people went without those services. Instead of talking about guns we should be talking about a very significant infusion of money and commitment to rebuild that system. Many years ago a book and then a movie, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" dealt a death knoll to America's Mental Health safety net. Instead of re-tooling and a re-commitment, most governmental agencies simply turned their backs on that system and allowed it to die. We have a great need to see that system re-built. "