Another tragedy, more spinning, and more thoughts and prayers. I keep going back to the quote “Who knew Healthcare was so complicated?” Life is complicated and there is no easy answer to this. There was an interesting juxtaposition of stories on PBS on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Wednesday the coverage was all about the shooting in Florida and the evil of guns and mental illness. However on Tuesday there was a very interesting piece on the benefit of deer hunting in Iowa. The deer have no natural enemy and can over run some of the corn and other crops. The herds need to be culled and harvested to reduce the damage they do. The interesting part was the number of deer and amount of venison that is donated to food pantries and to homeless shelters. This is a real benefit to those programs in their attempts to feed the hungry, especially with the planned reductions in funding.
The “solutions” to our mass shootings always comes back to reductions in the type of firearms available or increased mental health awareness. This doesn’t necessarily mean treatment since those resources are also being reduced. I keep thinking that it’s not the guns. The availability of automatic recoil weapons does appear to make mass killing easier, but shotguns, hunting rifles, handguns can also accomplish this. I had a patient who tried to kill someone with a metal can of tomatoes. Should all metal cans be registered?
In some parts of the country there is a strong family tradition of hunting. Firearms are considered tools and are often passed down from generation to generation. If we begin to think that you have to be a certain age to own a gun, or hunt, or shoot in competition, this would seem to only complicate this issue even more.
I also have concerns with putting the responsibility for identifying mass shooters on the public. Of course if someone is walking around with a machine gun or a machete covered in blood I hope someone reports him. However most of these shooters are somewhat isolated. They may make comments on social media, but if questioned they will deny any intent to harm.
I keep thinking of some of the patients I sent to the emergency room because of my fear that they were going to hurt themselves. I would have to fill out a long form specifying my concerns and their comments and actions. They would then be interviewed by another therapist, MD, counselor and then either released or hospitalized for a day or two. Then they would be back on the street. A friend of mine had a patient released from our treatment program with a very solid aftercare and outpatient plan. We thought he was ready to be discharged. He left the hospital went home and killed his wife, child, baby sitter and himself. It is very hard to read someone’s mind and identify those who are a real danger when they have no real history of violence.
This is especially true with adolescents. One of my old supervisors used to say “Adolescence is a disease”. The teen years are very turbulent. Hormones, school, peer, parental pressures can often be overwhelming. Every day can bring a new challenge. Unfortunately almost every teen will admit to considering suicide at some point. For some it is just a passing thought, for others it is a recurring nightmare. One of the other things we would see is that after a teen succeeded in suicide, there would often be others at the same school that would at least attempt or threaten to do the same thing. The fascination with the attention these children got overcame any fear of consequences. There is some speculation that their brains really cannot conceive of consequences because they are still developing.
After this latest episode, I’m sure there will be someone who wants the “fame” and notoriety of being another school shooter. There will continue to be loud accusations on both sides and the usual solutions proffered. This will probably mean that nothing will be done until the next time this happens.
Many people long for the good old days when nothing like this was going on. I recently read a column that blamed everything on loss of respect for life from abortion, violent video games, and the escalating sexual culture. I keep think that the good old days had wars and an enormous amount of violence. If anyone disagrees, I would suggest they go and look at a certain wall in Washington where an enormous amount of violence and loss is documented.
Over the next few days we will all be overwhelmed with the sadness of all this. Young lives lost for no real reason except to satisfy some poor deluded soul’s need for attention. So what is the solution? I really don’t know, but I hope that mental health resources and treatment are increased not just in schools, but also in all our communities. I hope that something as simple as a universal background check could be established. I would like to limit the ability of people with severe mental illness from being able to access firearms. I don’t want anyone to lose his or her rights, but I would like some common sense to arise in our culture. As complicated as this is, we can do something!