Thomas Wictor

I’m drinking coffee again. And how! I shouldn’t, because of the Meniere’s disease, but I’m losing my doctor in less than a month, I’m writing a very emotionally draining novel, we’re now feeding a family of doomed feral cats, and I’m not happy with people in my life. I buy my coffee at a convenience store because I don’t want to commit to making myself sicker by getting a coffee machine. A few minutes ago, after I procured my caffeinated dose of heaven, I had a brush with California’s next spree killer.

First, salut!

Yup. That’s a twenty-ouncer. I like my coffee black and in copious amounts. “All in” is my personal motto.

After I bought my coffee, I went to my car, which was parked on the street. A fat young man on a ten-speed bicycle was riding past. He wore a backwards baseball cap, dark glasses, shorts, and a T-shirt. There were wires coming out of his ears, so I assume he had a music-playing device somewhere on his person.

As I opened my car door, he said, “Hey. What’re you doing, fucker?”

I got in the car, closed the door, and locked it. The fat young man circled and stopped in front of me. He pretended to be looking around, taking in the sights. I waited for about a minute, and then I started my engine. The fat young man stayed where he was.

Since I truly want to live as long as I can, I just backed up. The fat young man followed me. I deliberately went so slowly that he couldn’t stay upright. He fell to the side and had to put one foot on the pavement. When that happened—as I knew it would—I jerked the steering wheel to the left and floored it, roaring past him. In my rear-view mirror, I saw him pedaling furiously after me, but I was in a Ford Crown Victoria. It was no contest.

The fat young man is a dangerous maniac who needs to be incarcerated, but he won’t be. And here’s why.

“Disability Rights California.” There’s your problem. It’s now almost impossible to lock up the dangerously mentally ill. The California Welfare and Institutions Code Section 5150—the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act or LPS—allows the police to request a seventy-two-hour psychiatric hold, which can be extended to fourteen days.

Certain criteria must be met.

After seventy-two hours, your detainment can be extended to fourteen days.

In California being subjected to a 5150 hold automatically prevents you from owning guns.

But for only five years.

Moronic. Someone who was dangerous enough to be involuntarily committed for any length of time should NEVER be allowed to own guns. All you people who look to government for the answers? You’re deluding yourselves. The reason government makes such ludicrous decisions is because it tries to please everybody.

The government of California—in reality all government—sees itself as possessed of superhuman wisdom. Barring dangerously unstable people from owning guns for only five years is an asinine, cargo-cult version of King Solomon offering to split the baby.

The Isla Vista murderer resided in a home for the mentally ill. He made videos threatening both murder and suicide. However, the police didn’t recommend that he be put in a 5150 hold. Why not?

Because the dangerously mentally ill are now part of a “community” with activists constantly screeching that they not be “stigmatized” in any way. The cops didn’t want to get sued, or maybe they were afraid someone would think they were intolerant.

Also, there’s no money for putting away potential spree killers.

California’s 5150 is far from a panacea, said Dr. Amy Barnhorst, an assistant professor of psychiatry at UC Davis School of Medicine who serves as its Sacramento mental health facility’s “gatekeeper” - the one who decides whether those brought in merit admission.

“We don’t see a lot of success stories,” she said. But, she acknowledged, “the ones who do well, we never see again.”

She said she sometimes has to make judgment calls, based in part on whether a patient’s symptoms justify hospital admission. Also, she said, budget cuts in 2009 reduced the number of beds at her facility from 100 to 50.

Guess what California spends most of its money on? In descending order:

1) health care,
2) education and pensions,
3) welfare.

In 2009 the California state budget was $85 billion. That same year, California spent $230 billion on health care. The reason is that hospitals can’t turn away those who can’t pay, and most of those who can’t pay aren’t even American citizens. But federal law requires that we pay for the health care of non-citizens who aren’t here legally, which means that we therefore don’t have the money to detain potential spree killers.

The 2014-2015 budget is $154 billion, of which $67 billion goes to education. Of the money poured into “education,” salaries and benefits for teachers and other staff will consume at least 83 percent.

As for pensions, CalPERS (California Public Employees’ Retirement System) has become a lobbying firm instead of a government agency, and it’s made absolutely horrible investment choices based on the personal connections between board members and corporations. The result?

CalPERS has the exclusive power to determine the size of state and local governments’ contributions into the fund. As its investments tanked, it quickly boosted those contributions to compensate. By mid-decade, local officials were frantically telling the California press that the contributions were squeezing out other forms of spending. Glendale, a Los Angeles suburb, watched its annual pension bill rocket from $1.3 million in 2003 to $13.7 million in 2007—nearly a tenfold increase. San Jose’s tab almost doubled, from $73 million in 2001 to $122 million in 2007, and then rose even faster over the next three years, hitting a jaw-dropping $245 million in 2010. San Bernardino’s annual pension obligations rose from $5 million in 2000 to about $26 million last year. The state budget took a massive hit, too, its pension costs lurching from $611 million in 2001 to $3.5 billion in 2010.

So, Californians: The next time a spree killer commits his murders, and you want someone to blame, look in the mirror. You’ve been voting like idiots for decades now, and the end result is death.