MAYBE WE GO ABOUT IT ALL WRONG?

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I’m sure you are all aware of the recent shooting that occurred at LAX, Los Angeles International Airport. Some of you may have thought: Another case for gun control, and some may have decided: Here comes another attack on the 2^nd Amendment!

Recently I was reading an exchange between #1 Son Anthony and friends on Facebook about the shooting and they made some interesting observations. One statement that I thought was not only true, but put a better light on these kinds of situations came from a person named Nancy Sullivan, that made me realize, we are looking in all the wrong places in finding a solution to this problem. She wrote in a response: "I agree Anthony, and I feel that the treatment of mental health must begin with the removal of stigma. Mental health issues are regarded with shame and secrecy, with the perception of weakness. No one tells a person with diabetes or heart disease to "buck up" or just "get over it." Brain disease needs to be seen as the organic condition it is, and treatment without judgment needs to be encouraged, the same way we treat the disease of any other organ before it becomes a life destroying condition. Many parents of young men are confused, or simply in denial that their kids are seriously off balance, and more and more it seems these kids become "loners," often obsessed with detached violence. Our Victorian attitude toward mental health is costing people their lives, both the person who so desperately needs treatment, and their victims."

This was in a response to my son’s statement: "I agree, guys. The first thing people talk about is the guns -- and rightly so -- but mental health in America needs to be discussed just as much in the wake of these events. The 80s saw the government looking towards treating mental health as a place to cut spending and it doesn't seem to have gotten better. I realize government spending is out of control and we spend money on a lot of unnecessary things, but I wonder if treating mental health issues should be something we think twice about before cutting."

Joy Martin Wise wrote: "It is a rare case when the shooter is not mentally ill."

And Charlie Back: “Bothers me that mental health always gets overlooked in these situations. Too many unstable people out there.”

I think we all know that what they wrote is true, but did we ever put the real cause to the forefront of our minds, identify it and realize we have work to do as a society?

Having worked with people with disabilities, I know that they can have an overwhelming response to their disabilities, and maybe we should look a little more closely at it. Whenever they perceive danger to themselves, or frustration to their needs or wants, many can strike out and take physical action. People who suffer from mental illness just take things to a higher and more dangerous level.

We should stop for a moment and realize that as much as we don’t need guns, they should be controlled and yet as a sport for hunting is allowable and meaningful in a way, so must we protect society from the insanity when those guns are obtained.

For my part, we seem to be putting too much emphasis on the shock, on the use of a gun, on the sensationalism the press brings to it and on the argument about regulating guns. Let’s look at the real culprit and put some muscle into fixing things: Mental Health.

It is a lonely thing to suffer from depression and mental illness as it is , and it is outrageous that we hide behind the set norms people perceive as to what is acceptable in society. People who suffer are suffering in a vacuum of despair, loneliness and fear of being found out! It must be a two-way street, both society and the victim of mental illness must come out and deal with the issues respectfully, charitably and lovingly. Fear should not be of the disease, but our own inaction, intolerance and unwillingness to deal with a self-evident truth.