PBS: NewsHour- Spencer Michaels- 'California Law Aspires to Improve Mental Health'

Source:PBS NewsHour- interviewing Eduardo Vega, for this piece.

"The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and television program distributor.[6] It is a nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educational television programming to public television stations in the United States, distributing series such as American Experience, America's Test Kitchen, Antiques Roadshow, Arthur, Barney & Friends, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Downton Abbey, Finding Your Roots, Frontline, The Magic School Bus, Masterpiece Theater, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Nature, Nova, the PBS NewsHour, Reading Rainbow, Sesame Street, Teletubbies, Keeping up Appearances and This Old House." 

From Wikipedia 

"In the wake of several recent shootings, politicians and commentators have called for improved mental health screening and treatment. Spencer Michels reports on a program in California called "Laura's Law," an unfunded mandate that has proven difficult to implement and has drawn concern about involuntary treatment for patients."

From the PBS: NewsHour

It's a good thing that California is taking a lead on something positive (for a change) as it relates to their government by funding mental health care. 

It's not as if we can't fund mental health care in this country, but it's that we've decided as a country that funding mental health care should not be a priority, or that it's too expensive. Which is not true! It should be a priority, because of the people we've lost in these shootings and we can afford it through things like health insurance and public assistance for people who can't afford it on their own. 

We're paying a bigger price in human life and I would argue financially as well when it comes to our law enforcement and corrections system and having to put mentally handicapped people in prison instead of hospitals. That if those people who committed these horrible crimes wouldn't have happened in the first place, if these people were just in mental institutions, or at the very least getting outpatient therapy and on medication. We wouldn't have seen the shootings in Aurora and Connecticut, that we've seen this year.