I think the "not guilty by reason of insanity" plea should be changed to "guilty by reason of insanity"... rather like the manslaughter charge ("I did do it but didn't mean to" plea). Then if found guilty, the folks should go to an institution for the criminally insane and serve out their full sentence with appropriate psychiatric help.
Not all prisons are set up to (or have funding to) have proper psych care, but criminally insane prisons do have it, and it would serve the purpose quite well. Whether the person was actually insane or is just pulling that plea to try to get off. Fewer people would use the plea if they knew that "winning" it would mean a trip to a looney bin where your fellow cellmates are all crazy *and* murderers... makes the "oh it's a country club, you'll breeze through it" thought just kinda go away. *evil grin*
Database... hrmm. Jeremy's right... there are different levels of mental illness, all with their own list of symptoms and effects and levels of danger. I guess put them all into the database, with a 1-10 rating, and base the "right to own a gun" on a certain rating or higher? I dunno though. Even if we start with the involuntarily commited people, that would cut off a lot of folks who'd gone through a temporary period of depression or extremely stressful situation and thought of killing themselves (or whose friends/family simply *feared* they were thinking of it, even if they weren't) and had them involuntarily commited for 24hrs (they can release themselves after 24 hrs). Do we want to start stripping rights from those people as well?
It's just a tricky road to navigate and there's no blanket answer that will work for every case.
