I tweeted this idea and then wrote this and posted it on FaceBook about an hour ago. It is an idea whose time has come. Let’s make a difference.
If the NRA could see the light and support mental health issues, it has the clout to drag that sad aspect of our society out of the era of witchcraft trials. Yes, I support gun control, but the common factor in all these mass shootings is not guns: the common factor is insanity. I say this because guns are in such profusion in the USA that they cannot be considered a common factor in these killings. If they were, we would have these mass killings every day.
Guns are a genie that’s out of the bottle. Let’s work on something that we can all agree needs work: let’s drag mental health research and treatment out of the prison system and our streets (where our PTSD victims live and our unmedicated insane live) and into the light of day. We have developed a society with the technology to take us and our imaginations into space, but our attitude towards mental illness is still in the Dark Ages of the inquisition and witch burnings.
Right now, there are
three places for the dangerously insane — for anyone with mental health problems: our homes, our streets, our prisons. Anyone with a brain that does not work properly is allowed to use that brain to refuse treatment if there is no perceived “danger”. (Hah)
We need to change all aspects of this situation. I say we get the NRA onto this issue. It would take all kinds of pressure off them and put some serious muscle into solving it. It is not just guns that create the problem: it is sick brains.
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Dies Ires
The shocking deaths of twenty children in Newtown Connecticut have not yet taught us what we need to learn. Let us change that outcome.
The media and political leaders of all stripes have jumped onto the gun-banning bandwagon, and I can’t say I blame them; however, although we do need to address many issues regarding firearms, these are not issues that can be addressed without further polarization and delays.
There is a more significant issue than banning firearms, and it is an issue that can be approached quickly and with little disagreement on any side. It is an issue that has been a significant factor in all of these mass shootings; in fact, I’m amazed that virtually no one seems inclined to address something that is so politically friendly and can have so much impact on preventing these situations from recurring.
We can all agree that the shooters in virtually all mass shootings in recent times have been insane; in fact, the instinctive reaction of many of us, when we heard the news, was, “What has another crazy done now?” or “How did a guy who was obviously insane get a gun?”
We can all also agree that the proliferation of weapons, particularly assault weapons is a Pandora’s box that has opened, and probably cannot be closed in the foreseeable future.
Surely we can all agree, on the other hand, that we have to treat the issue of insane people with guns; and that means that we have to deal with some serious mental health issues.
Here are just a few of the issues that we have to deal with:
1. We have to put serious money into researching mental health issues.
2. We have to find ways of making certain that mentally ill people who should be medicated will be medicated, and if in fact, the solution involves installing subcutaneous medication dispensers, so be it.
3. We have to make it impossible for people with certain types of mental illness to have access to firearms.
4. We must have specialized facilities for dealing with people with dangerous mental illnesses: prisons and homes are not adequate.
5. The prison system as it is is not equipped to deal with mental illness — that must change: either we don’t send the mentally ill to prison, or we change prisons to accommodate them as places for treatment and to satisfy public safety.
6. Ultimately, we have to develop actual cures for mental illness.
The subject is larger than this. It involves homelessness, PTSD, poverty, custodial issues, self-determination of the mentally incapable and more. Discuss.