Mental Health: Rudy Giuliani, former New York Mayor, argues that drastic improvements are needed in the mental health care system in America in order to prevent violent episodes like last Saturdays shooting in Tucson.
Giuliani says that it was the countrys inability to deal with mental illness that was somewhat responsible for the shooting. He also said that while the tragedy may provide the nation with "a real opportunity to try to have more civil discourse," he emphasized his belief that it wasnt American political rhetoric that motivated gunman Jared Lee Loughner.
"The lack of civil discourse wasn't the cause of this, as some people thought," said Giuliani.
"This man was crying out for someone who needed to be treated," Giuliani continued. "He was being told to be treated. People were saying he was bizarre. People were saying he was frightening. A teacher wouldn't be with him without a guard being there. Gosh, you would think at some point along the way he'd have been evaluated.
"It isn't an isolated incident: We could go back and look at lots of incidents like this where people weren't being treated," he said.
Giuliani also brought up the gun control debate.
"There are people that would argue that if more people had guns, this may not have happened because somebody might have been able to take action immediately and stop him before he inflicted either damage or as much damage as he did," Giuliani said. "We've got a very strong debate on guns. We're going to need a level of civility to discuss it that leads to rationality."
