In the Presence of Violent Psychotics

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10:05 AM, Dec 18, 2012 • By PHILIP TERZIAN

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There is no comprehensive cure for violence in human society, in America or elsewhere, and agitated calls for further restrictions on gun ownership have a Pavlovian quality. But mental illness is a real and persistent misfortune, which tortures individuals and can lead to public calamities. Instead of contending with abstractions such as evil, which it cannot do, our political culture might shift to undoing past mistakes, thereby doing some good.

Philip Terzian is literary editor of The Weekly Standard.