A few days have passed since the massacre at Sandy Hooke Elementary School in Newtown, CT. I don't have children nor am I really planning on it. I can't even imagine what the parents and townspeople are going through right now. It's so close to Christmas and that makes everything even worse.
The national debate about gun control has come up again. It took a literal massacre of 6 and 7 year olds to begin a very serious debate. The debate shouldn't be about guns. It should be about who has them.
Almost every mass shooting that has happened in recent memory has been by a mentally ill person. Mental illness needs to be addressed in terms of gun possession and in terms of locale to guns.
I've said it many times and I'm not afraid to say it again, I would not let ME have a gun. I have bi-polar and ADHD. That combination is not a good mix in the first place. Add in a gun and you have a recipe for a very bad day. My disorders are under control with medication. Not everyone with mental illness has access to medication. The cost of these medications are astronomical and unless you have some kind of insurance, there is no way the average person can afford them.
We can pass gun legislature to make it harder for people with mental illness to possess a gun but would that really do any good? The man who took out those kids in Connecticut stole the guns from his mom. She owned them legally. She broke no laws. The thing is, a mentally ill person will find a way to do what they want to do. We can add all the laws we want but nothing can stop these people from hurting us as long as they don't have their mental issues under control.
I thought maybe we should make laws that say if a mentally ill person lives in the same house as a gun owner, the guns have to go. Not taken away mind you. Maybe stored in another location or even just make it mandatory to have a gun safe with a fingerprint identification lock. A gun that only fires with the palm print of the registered owner. The issue isn't gun control. The issue is who has access to them. If we can actually make a gun "safer" to use maybe that would solve some problems. We have the tech now to make a new breed of guns that only allow certain people to use them. If the registered owner has no mental issues, they can purchase a gun, have it coded to their unique DNA and only they can shoot it.
Maybe the issue isn't just gun legislature. Maybe the underlying issue is really healthcare. Like I said before, it's too expensive for the average person to seek help for mental issues, let alone any medical issue. What do we expect to happen if all these people with mental disorders are obviously not getting the help they need ?
I propose Universal Healthcare ONLY for people with mental issues. Serious mental issues. At this point it is becoming everyone's problem. We can ignore the homeless guy on the corner who talks to himself and yells at you as you walk by. He's not hurting you. His existence doesn't affect you. Now if that homeless person was constantly going around killing adults and children, that person has now put you and your family in danger. Mental illness has now put all of us in danger. It can not be ignored any longer. It has now come into your backyard.
As long as our healthcare system only services the rich and people who can obtain really good insurance through their jobs, we will be plagued with more of these shootings. I can say that I did not have my disorders controlled for most of my life. It's only been recently that I have received help because I could not afford to see a doctor. If I didn't have a good job I would not be able to pay for my 4 medications.
Let me tell you how someone with bi-polar and depression sees things. Their brain tells them that everything is doom and gloom. Their anxiety levels rise for now good reason. Standing in line at the grocery store can set them off into a temper tantrum that would make the average person scratch their heads wondering what the hell is wrong with that person? The depression is exhausting. They're tired all the time, day or night, for no reason. Sleeping all day is a common occurrence. This is not something someone can just snap out of. This is about brain chemistry and electrical impulses and misfiring synapses. It's things we can can't control without the aid of medication and counseling.
Why do all these guys commit suicide after they kill? They were planning on it anyway. This is how they are going out. I hate it when people say that suicide is selfish. It's not selfish, it's a necessity. People who are really suicidal can't help being suicidal. It's brain chemistry gone awry. You can say they are only thinking about themselves. But it's not the same as you think it is. They are thinking about how to make the pain and the depression go away. They are also thinking about the people who love them in a different way. They are thinking that with their death, the lives of their loved ones will only be better. They want you to be relieved of their burden on you. If anything is selfish it's stable people who don't understand the mental issue and that the person with the disorder needs help and then don't help them and afterwards wonder why the shit hit the proverbial fan. It's help that they don't know they need sometimes. It's that person who is negative and just seems mad at the world. They don't know they are ill. They just think this is life and life sucks.
You might say that if we give free healthcare to the mentally ill than we will have to give it to everyone. Last I checked someone with the flu or even cancer wasn't shooting up 1st grade classes with an automatic rifle. It has affected all of us now. If we can't get rid of guns, we have to get rid of the illness that causes these shootings. Let's start trying to cure the disease by taking out the symptoms that cause it in the first place.
I heard a young girl on the radio the other day say that she actually targets the loners and the strange kids at school to be extra nice to them. She says hello to them. She tries to converse with them. Why? She said because in the event those loners ever decide to go on a killing spree she hopes that when he points the gun at her, he will see her face and remember she was kind to him and maybe he will spare her life. That's not the kind of things a teenager should be worrying about.
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