Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2014 13:49:49 -0400
From: “Tom Glendinning”
Subject: Crowell Post Chatlist #5018
Dear Ms Crowell,
You are certainly courageous to take on the issue of the 2nd Amendment.
Two points on your comments:
1. The revision of NC health care services delivery began under the hands of 90 democrats in 1993, producing HB 429. As I recall, Verla Insko was on the study commission which recommended the enactment. Senator Daniel sponsored SB 1293, the senate version, naming 21 other bills as part of the reform. There was no “heartless, uncompassionate” republican majority in either house at that time. What you are observing now is the result of that enactment combined with a struggling economy and reduced tax revenue, added to the new federal health care reform effects.
Part of this series of acts was to reduce the beds in state mental health facilities throughout the system. It has now shrunk to less that 50% of its former capacity in usage, about 25% nominally. The Mental Health Parity Act, called the Wellstone Act, was passed in 1996 requiring that insurance coverage of mental health claims be on a par with other forms of reimbursement for health care. It has been revised several times since.
I will not, for the sake of brevity, law blame for the housing crash. That is another historically rich topic, too often misaligned.
2. Per gun violence, I would agree with Taurus. There are many other weapons of choice in homicides, one of the least of which is guns. Take the automobile for instance. It produces thousands of deaths per year.
1980 50,000+ 22 deaths per 100,000 population
2012 33,500+ 10.7 deaths per 100,000 population
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year)
We are doing better, but the vehicle is the preferred instrument of death and destruction in the US.
It has outstripped total wartime casualties compared to annual auto accident deaths for decades, the American Civil War excepted.
But I do understand that the liberal mind demands a guilty party to blame. Or maybe the requirement is the human mind with limited information.
Tom Glendinning