the core problem

When I was young, the idea that someone would go into a school or a shopping mall and intentionally murder complete strangers was shocking. It isn’t shocking anymore. What changed?

Not gun availability. If anything, gun control tightened from 1968 to 2004. What did change between the mid-1960s and today—and which has an obvious connection—is that our society made a conscious decision to destroy the public mental hospital system, starting with the Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963 (which Ronald Reagan was still just a washed up actor).

Existing hospitals were emptied. A series of lawsuits by the ACLU made involuntary commitment extraordinarily difficult. People that in 1960 would have been hospitalized because they were mentally ill, and therefore were considered a threat to themselves or others, today are wandering the streets, a large fraction of the homeless population that also blossomed during the 1970s.

The vast majority of these headline mass murder events had histories of mental illness, recognized as such—but not adequately treated. The Virginia Tech killer. The Northern Illinois University killer. Patrick Purdy, who murdered five children on a playground in Stockton in 1989. Laurie Dann, who shot up an elementary school and provided poisoned baked goods to a college fraternity in the late 1980s. The list goes on and on of people who were recognized as mentally ill, but against whom no action was taken until they killed someone.

Deinstitutionalization was one of the major mistakes of the 1960s and 1970s. The mentally ill are paying the price for it today, and so is the rest of our society.

Clayton E. Cramer, at 10:10 am EDT on April 16, 2008

De-institutionalism the core problem? Really?

The Reagan policy of “de-institutionalization” (drastically reducing the incarceration rate of the diagnosed mentally ill) was undertaken, most believe, in order to reduce government spending. But the policy also enjoyed the benefit of a still-lively liberal-left criticism of the policy of incarceration. Think of Ken Kesey’s ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, or R.D. Laing’s THE POLITICS OF EXPERIENCE.

Like the iconic innocent person being put to death by the state, the concept of the different-but-not-crazy person being incarcerated by a system whose authority could not be challenged except through the gatekeepers who constituted that authority was anathema for many.

Unless a decidedly robust (and currently unknown) method for diagnosing—what, the liklihood? the near-certainty? the possibility?—a proclivity to mass murder is discovered, there would be, shall we say, trade-offs among the benefits of prophylactic institutionalization.

Rod Bell, Adjunct Professor at College of DuPage, at 3:45 pm EDT on April 16, 2008

Below is an informative press release IMO FYI The organization’s home page is at:http://www.marylandshallissue.org

“Lie-in” is Easier than Buying a Gun, says Maryland Shall Issue, Inc. Libertytown, MD April 16 Today, the Brady Organization will use the anniversary of the violent tragedy at Virginia Tech to further their plans to disarm Americans to make us safer. However, disarming people — slaves and Indians in early America; Jews in Nazi Germany, etc. — has always made them more vulnerable, not safer. The most effective way to minimize such violence, says Maryland Shall Issue, Inc., is to recognize the natural right of people, including adult students, to defend their own lives. Armed citizens can and do intervene more quickly than can police to halt such violence, yet the Brady Organization is anti-self-defense and wants to push for more anti-gun laws. Anti-gun regulations at VT were the problem – they ensured that the law-abiding victims were unarmed and unable to stop the violence. Gun-free zones are killing fields. http://johnrlott.tripod.com/op-eds/IBDNIUGunFreeZone022508.html

More than 10,000 existing laws regulating firearms did not prevent the tragedy at Virginia Tech, and no new restriction on firearms will prevent similar future tragedies. If we could get the criminals and insane to abide by firearms restrictions, why not just get them to follow the laws against murder? Lives could have been saved by allowing the students the tools to defend themselves instead of requiring them to just wait helplessly until armed help could arrive. Students for Concealed Carry ( www.ConcealedCampus.com ) is working to abolish “gun-free zones” in schools. They will be holding an “Empty Holster” protest in colleges and universities across the country during next week — April 21-25.

No one seriously argues that the police and military can function to protect citizens from violent criminals and enemies without firearms. However, responsible citizens in a democracy also need arms for the very same reasons — to defend themselves, their family, their community and their country. As Patrick Henry said, “If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?” Common sense gun laws for well more than the first 100 years of our great country not only allowed, but REQUIRED citizens to have firearms and ammunition. The right to defend one’s life is a natural right — a right our founding fathers said “shall not be infringed.” Unfettering this right of the people would return the country to its roots of freedom and responsibility.

Anyone in Maryland wanting to stage a ‘lie-in’ to protest easy guns should have to undergo an FBI background check and approval from the Maryland State Police while lying there for 7 days — the same requirements our law-abiding gun buyers have.

Contact: Henry Heymering of Maryland Shall Issue, Inc. 240-446-6782

mtwain, Univ of Md grad, at 4:35 am EDT on April 18, 2008