Gunman shoots in elementary school in Connecticut

[bae]

Thinking about it, it does seem odd that most of these shooters are actually not the disadvantaged, who really in many ways are treated the worst by society, but seem more often to be people with quite a lot of economic advantages. I know having money isn't everything, their home life could be horrible abusive etc., but is it an upper middle class phenomena?

I believe if you look, you will find that the disadvantaged are shooting each other every single day in our inner cities, it just rarely makes the news nation-wide, or provokes an outpouring of sympathy. Feel free to speculate why...

[Gregg]

Thanks for that perspective Gregg. I'm still confused as to how we would even deal with the incredibly long continuum of mental illnesses. If we took the "stigma" away..........what would that lead to?

I don't know the count, but it seems like there are probably more diagnosed physical maladies than mental. We don't seem to have a problem treating most of them so a similar approach of identifying, cataloging, researching and treating should work. The greatest gains might be made by educating the patients themselves and/or their families. Just figuring out that something is not right is a huge part of the battle, but that takes education. So does understanding that treatment is available and (in most cases) effective. But we aren't taught that. I don't know a single thing about how it is handled anywhere but here. Here, in a very highly rated high school, my DD's health curriculum includes one chapter on any mental health issue (depression). That section only covers a few of the basic symptoms and only lists a few common medications as potential treatments. That's it. I'm not saying our kids need to come out of high school with psych degrees, but we can do better than that.

Making it easier to get help is a key and frankly is where I hope removing the stigma would lead. For example, my health insurance is very good with the physical side of my well being, but allows just three covered visits to mental health professionals. Three. I doubt Adam Lanza could have reached a point of being able to comfortably integrate into society in three visits, but by God if he would have had a hangnail he could have gone back as many times as it took to get it fixed. That makes no sense, but is a big part of what I describe as stigmatized.

[awakenedsoul]

I was in a situation were being highly trained and armed would have done me no good. I was in a bank robbery. I was setting at my desk when three men came in with weapons drawn. One stood at the door with a shotgun, one went down the teller line pointing a 9 mm at the tellers and collecting money, the other came up to my desk and pointed a 9 mm at my head. All the firearms in the world and training would have did me no good. These robbers probably got there their fire arms from law abiding citizens in robberies. People who do own firearms should be required to have them securely locked up when they are not home.

Firearms are just to easy to obtain and many are in the hands of people who should not have them. The assault and high capacity clip restrictions being talked about also make since. Assault weapons are not the best home protection weapons and clips with more than 10 rounds in them are also not necessary. If you can not hit your attacker with 10 rounds another 20 wont help you. You need more training.

One time when I was in Westwood, CA a woman at the back door of a bank, (it was glass,) motioned to me and said, "There's a bank robbery going on. Call the police." This was 28 years ago, before cell phones. I went to a pay phone and called the police. I never found out what happened. I got out of there. It was fortunate that we both were in the right place at the right time.

I read today that Adam's mother took him with her to the shooting range. I think a lot of parents slip into denial about their kids. I've seen it around here. Most of these parents, drink heavily, take drugs, and they all have guns. A lot of their kids have gone to jail by age 22. I'm sure they could easily get their parents' guns.

[bae]

I take my daughter to the shooting range. I think I bought her her first rifle when she was 10, though she'd been shooting since 6. She regularly wins shooting competitions here, and organized the 4H and high school shooting clubs. I trust her completely with firearms, and other weapons, but then again, she isn't mentally disturbed, nor does she drink or use drugs.

I got her a wonderful sword for this Christmas, she's been training with blades for years now. If she ran amok with that sword, she'd be unstoppable by most. But she won't.

[JaneV2.0]

Thinking about it, it does seem odd that most of these shooters are actually not the disadvantaged, who really in many ways are treated the worst by society, but seem more often to be people with quite a lot of economic advantages. I know having money isn't everything, their home life could be horrible abusive etc., but is it an upper middle class phenomena?

Middle and upper-middle class parents are more likely to have health insurance. I haven't dug deeply into this issue, but my guess is that most of these mass murderers have been medicated. They don't put black box warnings on drug inserts for no reason.

[CathyA]

Bae.....your point? You keep bringing up how perfect and safe everything around your weapon usage always is. But for alot of people out there with access to guns, this isn't the reality at all.

[bae]

Bae.....your point? You keep bringing up how perfect and safe everything around your weapon usage always is. But for alot of people out there with access to guns, this isn't the reality at all.

My point is that demonizing gun owners, which always seems to happen in these threads, and society in general, isn't productive.

[CathyA]

And saying everything in your life is perfect, which always happens, isn't necessarily what's going on out there in society either. Hearing about your handling of guns doesn't make me feel any less disturbed or hopeful or accepting of guns in the wrong hands out there.

[SteveinMN]

I don't know the count, but it seems like there are probably more diagnosed physical maladies than mental. We don't seem to have a problem treating most of them so a similar approach of identifying, cataloging, researching and treating should work.

I think part of the problem is that we still know so little about how the brain and nervous system works. We know that diabetes is caused by inadequate production and/or utilization of insulin in the body. Enhance the ability of the body to produce insulin or simply add it and the patient is at least on the road to recovery. We still don't know why someone becomes manic-depressive -- is it a chemical or hormonal deficiency? A kind of mental reaction to certain stimuli? We don't know yet.

That mystery is one reason why I believe there is a stigma to mental illness. The other is, as you mentioned, that people tend to think that many mental problems are -- pardon the pun -- "all in your head". Depression is a failure to think positively. Is the baby colicky or are those early signs of reactive attachment disorder? It's okay that grandma's bad hip makes her a little slow walking down the aisle of the store, but people have a hard time understanding if grandma is a little slow because her mind isn't as sharp as it used to be. The Marlboro Man may have broken or sprained something if his horse bucked and he may even have gotten lung cancer from all the cigarettes, but damn if he wasn't always on top of things emotionally.

Making it easier to get help is a key and frankly is where I hope removing the stigma would lead. For example, my health insurance is very good with the physical side of my well being, but allows just three covered visits to mental health professionals. Three. I doubt Adam Lanza could have reached a point of being able to comfortably integrate into society in three visits, but by God if he would have had a hangnail he could have gone back as many times as it took to get it fixed. That makes no sense, but is a big part of what I describe as stigmatized.

In addition to almost-comical limits on the number of visits, those visits also come with their own deductible and even different percentages of coverage. And they're never as favorable to the patient as physical-illness coverage.

[iris lily]

My point is that demonizing gun owners, which always seems to happen in these threads, and society in general, isn't productive.

oh sure, that's typical.

But I wonder, bae--are there any restrictions in gun ownership that you'd like to see happen? Ones that may or may not have come out of this Newtown incident? What do you think the political approach should be in addressing new cries for gun control?