By Erin Hull
There have been two mass shootings in the past 3 weeks that have acted as catalysts to reignite the battle of gun control and the broken system of mental health care in this country.
There have been more than 30 mass shootings since Columbine in 1999. With every mass shooting in the past few years, there has been public pressure afterwards to address several inadequacies in firearm policy and the mental healthcare system in the United States.
There seem to be (at least) three public health problems which need to be addressed, before another 15 years go by and there are countless more casualties to mass shootings.
1) Gun access needs to be limited to those with mental illness who are or may become dangerous. There seems to be consensus that people with serious mental illnesses should not be able to purchase guns, but there are currently few laws being enforced to ensure this doesn’t happen.
Federal law states that it is unlawful to sell or give a firearm to a person who is known to have “been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution.” States also have their own specific laws in line with this. These laws need to be properly enforced, there should also be a functional Federal database with names of violent and potentially violent offenders, to restrict them from crossing state lines to purchase guns.
2) There needs to be reform in mental health care in the health care system and the education system (for children and adolescents with mental health disorders).
There are many problems in access and delivery of mental health care in the United States. Children and adolescents are especially vulnerable to mental illness and are often either treated inappropriately or not treated at all. With each shooting, there is more pressure for mental health professionals to involuntarily commit those with mental illnesses who may become violent.
The unfortunate truth is, mental health professionals often cannot predict violent behavior. In retrospect, it seems obvious to the public that these assailants have committed these crimes, but there are many more mentally ill people who never resort to violence against themselves or others. It’s easy for us to sit back and ask why someone so obviously mentally ill wasn’t institutionalized sooner. But I think the underlying problem is how mental health treatment is treated when a child or adolescent first displays symptoms.
Shortly after the Sandyhook elementary school shooting in 2012, Dr. William Dikel at the University of Minnesota wrote a report entitled “School Shootings and Student Mental Health – What Lies Beneath the Tip of the Iceberg.” In it he discusses the importance of schools to work WITH mental health professionals, not to employ them or take on the liability that they do, but mental health professionals working with educators to provide care that could lead to better outcomes than we see now. We currently see too many mentally ill young people drop out of school and not get the treatment they desperately need and deserve to lead normal, healthy adult lives.
Many of the men responsible for these shootings have had extensive histories of mental illness, which may have been avoided with proper interventions early on, IEP’s, and a collaboration between parents, educators and mental health professionals.
3) The media needs to take the spotlight away from the killers, the focus should be on the victims and strategies towards solving the mental health crisis in our country.
In the UCSB shooting three weeks ago, the shooter left his manifesto for police to find, and he posted disturbing videos prior to his crime. He wanted all of this speculation and attention. He wanted to be “famous.” And the case is the same with the shooter last week in Seattle, he apparently asked police in 2012 to shoot him, because he was laying in the middle of the road, so he could become “famous.” These cases are not isolated, other mass shooters have studied past shooters in the hopes of becoming known after their death by the writings and evidence they leave behind.
Are Gun Free Zones Targets?
In the most recent shooting in Seattle, there is a lot of attention on John Meis, the student who was able to pepper spray and tackle the shooter before he killed any more people. John Meis has a gun permit, but he was unable to carry a concealed weapon in the gun free zone in which the shooting took place. This has refueled the debate of gun free zones in the United States.
The argument for more permissive concealed weapons policies for civilians is essentially that gun free zones are targets. Premeditation of shooters has revealed that many of them have researched past mass shootings, stocked weapons in advance, know the layout of their target, and the typical response time for law enforcement. A gun free zone is more appealing to shooters because they know that other civilians will not be able to defend themselves.
After researching this, it seems to be more accurate that places targeted by shooters also happen to be in gun free zones (schools, workplaces, college campuses). Many law enforcement experts feel that having armed civilians in a place where a shooting is taking place may actually result in more casualties (think about a dark movie theatre), as civilians are not trained to take down an active shooter.
The tragic events of the past few weeks have reminded us once again of these problems, but we must demand change in gun policy law enforcement and the mental health care infrastructure.
The picture I have included is of Paul Lee, the most recent mass shooting victim from Seattle. He was a 19 year old freshman from Oregon. Friends described him as deeply faithful with a contagious sense of humor.
Questions for readers:
What else needs to be done to reform mental health care in this country?
Do you think there any way to steer the media away from analyzing and romanticizing the assailants of mass shootings (without taking away their freedom of speech)?
How do you feel about gun free zones? Do you think they are targets?
Sources
https://www.nsba.org/sites/default/files/School%20Shootings%20and%20Student%20Mental%20Health.pdf
http://www.oregonlive.com/north-of-26/index.ssf/2014/06/seattle_pacific_university_sho_3.html (picture source for Paul Lee)
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/santa-barbara-massacre-mental-illness-and-access-to-guns/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/03/24/nras-gun-free-zone-myth–column/2015657/