The report HERE was there was a second person of interest, not that there was a second accomplice. My only comment there is that we may learn more once they find that person.

The very second paragraph of your source cites a blog at Fox News. TPM has the walk-back:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/01/dont_jump_to_conclusions.php

But Fox has walked back its initial description of the memo as coming from the Department of Homeland Security. Now it uses a labored description: “a law enforcement memo based on information provided by DHS.”

That’s not the same thing as a DHS memo, and it suggests somewhat less certainty about whether Loughner’s reference to the group in his internet ramblings is getting special attention from law enforcement.

One can never go wrong by being extremely careful with anything from Fox News, even if they may, on extremely rare occasions, happen to coincide with our deeper suppositions.

“Palin’s detestable cross hairs graphics are still inexcusable though.”

“he is more vulnerable than ever to political climates, especially ones that tolerate and utilize allusions to violence on a routine basis.”

“on a moral level. Palin IS worse than the dude who made that movie in the sense that you expect a former VP candidate from one of the two major U.S. parties to show better judgment”

POTUS: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” -Barrack Obama, June, 2008

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/09/jared-loughner-youtube-videos-_n_806370.html

After all, the report HERE that the shooter had an accomplice has been PROVEN to be false. That doesn’t mean that the news item shouldn’t have been mentioned, does it?

Your points about mental illness are spot on. Absolutely. However, homeland security said no such thing. A blog atFox News erroneously posted something that they claimed was somehow based on what someone from DHS said, but they are now backing off.

There are lots of rumors flying around. Please don’t repeat them.

So far, the only evidence remains is that of a deeply disturbedmentally ill man who lives in a state whose assinine laws allow anyone to walk around with a semiautomated weapon. So far — and I
am willing to emphasise, SO FAR — that is all the hard FACTS that
we have so far. Everything else is rumor and speculation. Please,
let’s leave the rumors where you found them Believe me, if we learn
more HARD EVIDENCE, you will see it here.

Schizophrenic, yes. Random act of a mentally ill person, no. Will we ever know the reason for actions? He probably doesn’t even know what it is.

Still, that doesn’t absolve the responsibility of politicians who deliberately rile up America’s mentally unstable and sit back to see what happens. That’s why Westboro pickets the funerals of veterans, hoping that some unstable family member will go completely off their nut and kill some gays. It’s a deliberate strategy on their part. Throw a whole bunch of shit out there and see if any of it sticks to teh crazee.

As for treatment, most schizophrenics can be succesfully brought out of psychosis and their symptoms managed reasonably well with out-patient visits– but the dealbreaker is that as a group, they are notorious for being noncompliant about taking their meds. They go into a psychotic episode, get hospitalized… stablized on meds, some effort at socialization and rehabilitation in the hospital or halfway house setting… then they’re back under their own supervision, where — because they feel OK– they decide they don’t need their medication. And it goes to round 2… and 3, and 4, and on and on. I’m familiar with the cycle because my mother was a violent (not common, but it happens) paranoid schizophrenic, in and out of mental hospitals like they had a revolving door. She just refused to believe that anything was wrong with her, and did everything possible not to take her meds. (Yeah, the childhood fun was endless. & I’m adopted, thank god.)

There is a fine line between sucessful treatment of the mentally ill and the loss of their civil rights, and so far the issue has eluded a satisfactory solution.

It’s difficult, yes. I agree.

One thing I say for certain is that a person, ACCURATELY DIAGNOSED, should be involuntarily incarcerated for treatment AFTER committing a brutal crime such as this.

How can one see when someone will make a destructive decision? How can we know when they will “snap?” This should be studied more. Maybe we can find the answers.

And although medical facilities are not luxury resorts, there are plenty that also aren’t Cuckoo’s Nests run by “The Combine.” Electro-shock and lobotomies are no longer standard practice.

Because in this case, and in many cases, the personality of the person cannot even be seen. It is clouded by a disease.

Given isolation, medication, therapy, and intense treatment, the disease in the man can be controlled, and his mental health state rehabilitated.

Why should society have to pay? Some people argue that pedophiles are “mentally sick” (I think they are just evil, aside from that). So then we have to pay to ensure the well-being of people who brutally molest children. Moreover: it doesn’t even work. There is only one cure for pedophiles, and it’s something they can sit on.

Strawman. Schizophrenics are not pedophiles. Their diseases operate in completely different ways. Just as manic deppresives are not obsessive compulsives. Different diseases. Different treatments.

We would not be paying to enable the mentally disordered person to continue to wreak havoc on society – just the opposite, in fact. We would be paying to treat the mentally disordered person, keeping them FROM wreaking havoc.

We don’t yet know how to cure or treat pedophilia. We DO know how to treat schizophrenia and certain other disorders.

If the choice is between paying to keep them in prison, where rehabilitation wouldn’t happen, or paying to put them through intensive and effective medical treatment to control the disease, the latter is what I want my tax dollars to fund.

Further is is both legally and physically difficult to force a person suffering with a mental illness to take medications.

While Loughner may have been evidencing signs of mental illness, there is virtually nothing that anyone could have done about it. He was functional – at least in the usual sense of the word.

The efforts of his community college to encourage a mental evaluation simply caused him to choose not to return. Presumably his parents could have encouraged mental health care, but he is an adult and had every legal right to refuse. Rambling videos or ideas about constitutionality – whether conventional or not – are not cause for a loss of rights.

Those who wish that society had “done something” will need to square that with their views on involuntary incarceration or forced medication.