Mentally ill have rights

Where in “Mental health and mayhem” [Opinion, Jan. 6] does the author tell us how he and medical counselors could have done a better job? His proposals, in response to his son’s fatal attacks at Cafe Racer, jeopardize the civil rights of all of us who are mentally ill.

How would he feel if sterilization were proposed for all parents of the violent or suspected potentially violent mentally ill? Without due process? Either way, ridiculous.

Genetic, cognitive factors and physiology are being addressed by researchers for better medical treatments. Of course, those who are noncompliant must be compelled to take the least harmful and most optimum medications.

Banning guns or compulsory training and licensing of gun owners, such as suggested in the “We need to embrace common-sense gun controls” [same page], will bring the fastest way to protect our lives.

-- John Freeburg, Bremerton