Gun advocate, mother, age 42, shoots her two daughters, ages 17 and 22, and kills them, later gets shot by police, no record of arrests. What else needs to be done in such a case?

Sounds like the case is done.

@Andy B: The police have the legal right to use force when needed to prevent injury or death to themselves or others. If you read about this situation, you would know that they ordered a citizen to stop shooting and drop her weapon, but she didn't. It was only then that they shot her.

There are occasions when police are in the wrong and are disciplined/prosecuted as a result. But for you to make a blanket statement that police are always wrong and should be subject to the death penalty shows that you have little understanding of how law enforcement operates.

she needed to be in the psych ward long before that happened

Hello Marguerite...

From what I have read, the police had been called to the family house 14 time prior to this shooting. Some of these were for alarm problems but most were for issues of her mental stability....So That is a good place to start..Mental health and treatment..

I agree.
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In the 1980s, advocates for the mentally ill in the United States won a decades-sought "victory" that made it illegal to keep people in asylums and institutions indefinitely, even if and when the people posed a danger to themselves and/or others. In addition to that provision, a side "victory" made it necessary in many types of cases for a person to agree to be committed, which means that someone who potentially has mental illness or is diagnosed with mental illness has the legal right to determine whether or not he or she is mentally ill to the point of being committed voluntarily. (Extremely few people volunteer to be locked up under ANY circumstances, mentally ill or not.) In many jurisdictions throughout the US, 72 hours is the maximum amount of time a person can be held for mental reasons.
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Andy, when people make after-the-fact statements like yours above, it makes me wonder what they would do or would have done if faced with the situations themselves.
A tense person with a gun is a stressful situation to be in. A tense person with a gun who has just shot her own two daughters is an even more stressful situation to be in. A tense person with a gun who has just shot her own two daughters and is refusing to comply with armed police officers' orders to drop the gun is an even more highly stressful situation.

I'm glad that you're so much better equipped than the average officer mentally, ethically and morally to diffuse a person with a gun AND to guarantee that everyone will emerge without the slightest scratch, all based on your indignation at how this case played out.

__

Why is that funny to you? Is it a race to see who posts about a tragedy first?


:|

Well put.
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She was also a Republican and vocal against gun control, fearing the democrats would take away her right ( of shooting her daughters).

More education and less indoctrination would be a start.

But hey, it´s ´Texas, not a chance of that happening anytime soon.

I guess according to the gun lobby, things happened the way they were supposed to. Nobody infringed upon anyone's 2nd Amendment rights, and the woman could own the gun(s), and when she became a "bad person with a gun", a "good person with a gun" (the police) dispatched her post haste. The daughters were just the collateral damage, fallout from maintaining a "free" society.

And you are willing to say that publicly.....................

The woman used a 5-shot, .38-caliber revolver, not a "rapid fire high capacity rifle", whatever the hell that is.

Using you twisted thought process though maybe we should consider banning bathtubs as well.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-mom-arrested-in-drowning-deaths-of-15-month-old-twins/

Given that, I'd say that you're the one that's mentally ill . . .

RandyD, Andy is, like myself, British, and in Britain, the Police are unarmed (they can call on specialist firearms units if need be), and we do not have the death penalty, which explains why he said what he did. I agree with the general thrust of his argument. All death is a tragedy, and state-sponsored execution is, in my view, as much a crime as what this poor, deranged woman did. Like Andy, I worry that routinely arming the police makes them inclined to shoot too quickly. This may not have been the circumstances in this case; I don't know. I am just glad I live in a country where the cops do not routinely carry guns, and where we do our utmost to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of those who are unsuitable to own them. This case is another sad testimony to the laxity of Americas gun laws. I do not tell those in other countries what laws they should have, but I have the right to express an opinion, and my opinion is this: that one who regards owning a gun as a right, rather than recognising it as a responsibility, is not a fit person to own a gun.

I would give my own life without hesitation to protect my children . Pretty sure my wife feels the same way. So I can't begin to fathom what kind of emotional distress would drive a parent to take the lives of their children.

It is amazing. The dems come out in droves when one person who supports the 2nd amendment commits a crime but are totally silent when the hundreds of times guns are used to save lives and stop crimes.

Hypocrisy know no bounds.

Hundreds of times guns are used for defense. See link for local news reports that never make the national news.

https://www.americanrifleman.org/the-armed-citizen/

Ten minutes ago it said "Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!".

Stu, if you want to take that despicable stance that is entirely up to you, but please go and take that stance with someone else, not with me. I will not listen to a word you have to say on the matter and I will make even bigger blanket statements about it from now on.

Good day.

The underlying meaning of my statement is that LAW ENFORCERS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO KIILL. Why do you think I am much more in favour of vigilante-type justice as opposed to the legal system? Apart from the obvious reason that vigilante justice adds the personal touch that is missing from the legal system, for law enforcers to be allowed to do something that the law forbids everyone else to do is disgustingly hypocritical, and I DO NOT RESPECT HYPOCRISY.

Yes, you can be sarcastic all you like, Randy, but each time this kind of incident occurs it only makes me trust the cops less and less and hate them more and more. I'm sorry if it doesn't agree with your personal set of principles (whatever those might be) but I have my own fixed principles and that's the way it is. I do not bend my principles to suit a bunch of sick, psychopathic, twisted law enforcers.

Bath tubs are used to kill people too. Bath tub drownings happen yearly.

Anything can and has been used for a weapon.

20% of all drowning are homicides. Should we ban bath tubs? People don't need them. They can take showers.

Gun haters have created an nice little semantic word game. Guns are a tool. Tools of all types are used for committing crimes.

Let's ban everything that can be used to harm people.

It is a boring gun story about a crazy woman.  The highlight is the insanity.  Not the gun.  She would have killed them anyway probably.  She wanted death, she would have found a way. 

The gun made it faster and easier.  So they are focusing on the gun issue.  I think they have better examples.  This case defies reason because there was no reason beyond insanity. 

*Sigh* if only those two girls had had guns so they could blow their idiot mother's head off, this tragedy could have been averted. I mean, no, wait, uhhh....

She shot them out on the street, and they died like dogs. If she'd been waving a knife, chances are they could have gotten away.