DrafterX wrote: Do they still call them nuts..?? what is the politically correct name for them..??
Dunno. Stability challenged?
Regarding why it is so difficult to get anyone committed nowadays...according to a state adult protective services person I chatted with a few years ago it is to a large degree a reaction to past abuses of the system, when it was comparatively easy to get someone committed to a mental institution. So instead of signing a few papers to secure institutional care and supervision for someone, now it has to be legally proven beyond any doubt that the person is in imminent danger of harming themselves or someone else. Unfortunately, this is pretty hard to prove proactively.
So when the numbers of people being committed for various reasons dropped, the funding for various institutions dropped correspondingly and a number of them closed down.
In short, being crazy is within your rights as an individual and not against the law, right up to the moment when you get hold of a weapon and kill a bunch of people. Then the media and political feeding frenzy starts...about the weapon, not the crazy person.