Mike, I'm a veteran. You have raised many good points. How many people who make comments here have experienced 2, 4 or more years with the Army?

When I came back from the Army, all my friends had gone to graduate school or already had good jobs. It was very difficult for me.

I do not think, however, that mental illness is necessarily the chief cause of using a gun. A lot of what takes place today is simply the lack of opportunity to make friends with others and see their points of view. Although I didn't like the Army, this is one thing that really helped me. Instead of seeing myself as "KU" and "someone special," I benefited from these different points of view, and exchanges of opinions - and this made a great deal of difference for me later in life. (See my blogs, for example.)

I found the Army far broader in terms of the people I met, who were from all over the country and from many different backgrounds, than the people I had previously met at KU. It was as though the world was expanding, greatly; and that did not take place during my time at KU. I went to Germany, eventually all over Western and Eastern Europe, Turkey and Morocco, and everywhere, I met new people that changed my perspective forever.

I learned tolerance and really pursuing topics in detail, and I met my first friends from so many different countries- from Tunisia, to Serbia and Morocco. I learned that I could tolerate and learn from differences. There was no need to use a gun.

Today, people at KU for the most part don't learn these things, and we are much the worse for it.

And it's multiplied by the fact that there is almost no room or accommodation at KU for people of all ages, so that the range of possible friends is very small.

While the professor is correct that a draft will give the government a chance to take a peek at a person's mental health and military service generally builds character, conscription is too similar to slavery to be reinstated.

A draft is the last thing you do to defend American soil from foreign invaders. It isn't something we should ever consider to cure domestic issues.

That solution is a thousand times worse than the problem.

"Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.” (The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.) — Tacitus, Annals"

Thank you for posting that.

Please tell me this is satire. Involuntary servitude as a way to identify the mentally unstable, and build character in the rest? People shouldn't be drafted for military duty any more than for any other line of work, and the idea that they should belongs in the Victorian era, when life was cheaper and rights were what you could afford to buy. The high-tech armed forces are not potato peelers and cannon fodder these days, and the idea of using military service as a way to scoop up dangerous psychopaths and make citizens out of slackers is insulting to the professionals who voluntarily serve, in and out of the military.

What reinstituting the draft would accomplish is increasing the number of walking wounded and prematurely dead, but with many more who never bargained for that possibility; trivializing "patriotism" and "character" as a matter of blind obedience, gun skills and a readiness to kill; resurrecting the corrupt system of dodges and deferments that socioeconomically perverted our last draft; saddling our career military professionals with a steady stream of unmotivated, angry draftees to train and fight beside. Nobody needs or wants this, and it is a fundamental violation of human rights to boot, a giant step backwards into a bad old world. What an appallingly illiberal suggestion for an ostensibly liberal commentator.

What Is the Draft and How Does It Work? http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=875907#.UORadqwqh8E

The draft is a lottery system whereby all eligible draftees are assigned a number and numbers are randomly selected. This system would not have everyone enlisted in the military. I think the author is wanting a system of conscription (compulsory service) for every able bodied person in the country such as in Greece, Austria, Finland, Egypt, Germany (until last year), Israel, Switzerland, etc. No one will slip through the cracks that way.

I used to be against the draft, but now I see how it has turned out. There are a lot of "me, me, me" people out there who are all for war, but don't ask them to pay for it. They are all for putting armed guards in schools, but don't ask them to pay for it. I think it would be a great idea. And no deferments. If you are unable to handle the physical part of the military there are plenty of other things that need to be done. Get rid of the Haliburton. Those kids that aren't good for the physical side could cook, clean, do clerical work. Those who don't shoot well, even though all should be taught how to shoot and gun safety, should work cleaning parks, helping burn off or clear out areas in forests, so they don't burn, providing safety in schools, helping with natural disasters, running after school programs for kids, etc. And especially no deferments or special privileges to the kids of the rich and influential. That's what went wrong before.

Yes, there have recently been some nutcases who were in the military, like Tim McVeigh, who have done some horrible things, but in an all voluntary military you often end up with a "club". That means there are pockets of people who think alike, including anti-Americans, who hang out together. In a draft, and not just military, you will end up with a lot of different view points, and people like McVeigh will either be identified as dangerous or not pass a series of psych evaluations.

It's also time for those who supported getting rid of institutionalizing people to step up to the plate and explain why they now don't want to support the community care of these people. It was the libertarians who wanted to shut down these institutions. They claimed that the rights of the mentally ill were being violated, that they should be free to live on the streets if they wanted too. But conservatives and libertarians also don't want to pay for the community care either. I guess we are all paying now, with many dead children, and a possibility of having armed guards wherever we go. Libertarian, or police state?

The problem with a "renewed" draft is that our Government and Military have a habit of getting our military men and women killed for no good reason. We haven't won a war since WWII and I don't have faith that the current or future administrations will offer up the lives of our sons and daughters w/o a proper declaration of war.

Currently we have witnessed Obama commit the US to military action in the event that Iran possesses a nuclear weapon. How can one go about making the "red line" commitment without asking congress first?