Sorry, Kathryn, gotta disagree. Cho was crazy; plenty of people knew he was crazy; he should have been locked up.

I’m not oblivious to the civil liberties point. I watched the whole de-institutionalization process, heard all the arguments, saw “Cuckoo’s Nest” when it first came out, and so on.

There’s a line to be drawn here–as often elsewhere–between liberty and the public safety, and we’ve drawn the line in the wrong place. Is there a professional out there who could give us an opinion on the following question: How many people are there in the USA as crazy as Cho? I’d put it in the range 100,000-500,000, but that’s uninformed guessing. Even if 500,000, I’d say: Lock ‘em up.