Potential Shooting Victims Must be Able to Defend Themselves, Says Doc

In the aftermath of the recent killings in Isla Vista near the University of California, Santa Barbara, Arthur Berg, a former associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Dr. John Lott, an economist and author, have penned an article in the New York Post which essentially says that potential shooting victims must be able to defend themselves.

According to GunsSaveLives.net, the Post article states that mental health has become a focus after the mass killings in California. “Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) is pushing for more resources on mental health ‘to make sure that these kinds of horrific, insane, mad occurrences are stopped and the Congress will be complicit if we fail to act,'” the article reads.

However, the killer who committed these horrific crimes had “already been receiving top-quality mental-health counseling for years,” the article continues. “Some blame the sheriff’s deputies for not doing more to investigate an initial complaint, but Rodger’s psychiatrists ultimately had the responsibility to ensure he had the proper treatment. It’s not obvious how more money would have helped.”

“No one wants a dangerous person to have a weapon,” the article concludes. “But our mental-health system simply can’t be the last line of defense. There are just too many mistakes. Potential victims need to be able to defend themselves.”