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Following tragedy, let’s focus on solving core problems
Heath Haussamen
In the wake of the Aurora massacre we can, and perhaps should, debate the role of guns in our society. But as long as we focus on that at the expense of working to solve our core problems, we’re seeking a Band Aid instead of true societal healing.
Hours after the shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. on Thursday, a friend told me he was essentially hoping the tragedy would spark a conversation that would lead to greater gun-control measures.
I had the opposite reaction: I told him I thought it was too bad no one in the theater was carrying a concealed handgun.
But as the media facilitated a debate about gun control – and whether it was even appropriate to debate gun control in the wake of such a tragedy – I came to believe we were failing to focus on what matters most.
We could ban assault weapons such as the semi-automatic rifle used in the theater shooting and we wouldn’t stop every massacre. Some would still find a way to get their hands on such weapons; others would simply use shotguns, or hunting rifles, or handguns. And if we banned those too, they’d find other ways to spread death and chaos.
Similarly, we could allow people to legally carry concealed weapons in every state, and there would still be places where horrific crimes would occur without well-meaning, gun-toting citizens near enough to help. And there’s always the possibility that such a citizen could make a mistake and exacerbate the situation, though there are plenty of examples in America of them stopping crimes.
Though either potential solution might help combat crime, neither addresses the deeper societal question fewer have been discussing since the Aurora massacre: What drives people to commit such atrocities?
The answer is complex. Some suffer from mental illness. Some are dealing with struggles such as divorce or loss of a job. Some are hardened by what life has done to them. And those superficial stabs at providing partial answers don’t even scratch the surface.
We can be better than this
But there is a lot we can do to create a society in which fewer people are driven to commit such crimes, and the solution goes far beyond government alone. It includes our nonprofits, our churches and other religious institutions, our businesses, and each of us.
We need to work toward goals that include lower unemployment and poverty rates, more effective schools, more affordable health care, better access to services, improved infrastructure including roads and Internet lines, stronger families and community support systems, and better care for the mentally ill.
Many work toward these goals every day. But are we as a society doing enough? How many of us are involved in figuring out how government can help address these issues? How many of us donate time and money to organizations that work to fix these problems? How many of us could afford to give a little more but opt to spend it on ourselves instead?
On an individual level, how many of us are willing to truly sacrifice to help out a friend or family member in need? How many of us know someone who is depressed or on edge but aren’t offering help? How many of us have concerns about the way a neighbor or classmate is acting but fail to share those concerns with someone who can get them help they may need – and potentially stop a massacre?
Some of you are giving everything you have, and I commend you. Some are working toward solutions to society’s woes but could do more. I find myself in that category. And some are doing little or nothing at all.
We need to do more. As a society, we’re capable of doing more. We can be better than this.
We can, and perhaps should, debate the role of guns in our society. But as long as we focus on that at the expense of working to solve our core problems, we’re seeking a Band Aid instead of true societal healing.
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There is some research on how effective armed citizens are at stopping crimes. There are many more incidents than most would imagine, thousands of them, but it seems law enforcement doesn’t keep track (or perhaps want to keep track) of the statistics of these brave citizen interventions. Here is one study, WARNING it is from Cato, and I know many will not ever believe anything they say on this blog, but there is data here, if you have better data that shows these armed citizens are a threat to society, please show it:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/WP-Tough-Targets.pdf
The idea of a ‘well-meaning, gun-toting citizen’ taking action makes me cringe. Has everyone forgotten Trayvon Martin and the ‘well-meaning, gun-toting’ George Zimmerman? I, for one, do not want vigilante gun nuts running around trying to ‘protect’ me from other vigilante gun nuts.
Thank you for the clarification. It does indeed help. However, you lose me at this statement:
Perhaps trying to connect someone who needs counseling or mental health care with a clinic, maybe even help paying for it if that’s needed and you’re able
Connecting someone with a clinic is not easy. Simply learning what resources are available, where they are, what services they offer, what eligibility requirements they impose, etc., is a big job. Just take one program: Medicaid. Trying to get Medicaid eligibility is not for the faint of heart, the barely competent, or those who are unwilling to spend most of their lives waiting.
There are people trained to do this, who make a profession of connecting people with resources. They’re called social workers.
Perhaps I could train myself as a social worker, maybe take some UNM courses, learn about what’s what around Albuquerque. But this is another area where letting a professional do the job seems life by far the most effective and efficient thing to do.
I’m all in favor of amateurism, and people helping where they can. But I’m also in favor of recognizing when it’s time to call in a professional. Mental health – the whole thing, from triage to connecting people to the proper provider to providing services – is such an area. It’s too complicated to be left to amateurs.
I’m also very hesitant to simply offer to pay. Mental health treatment is very, very expensive. Assuming some sort of talk therapy, twice weekly sessions at about half the going rate (assuming sliding scale discounts for the homeless) we’re still talking somewhere north of $5,000 a year at least, and I’d expect at least a year would be needed. That’s a whole lot of money, by my standards.
And yet, were I in that situation, as I could well be or have been, I’d hope that someone would do it for me.
The answer is to share the costs fairly among all those who are, or might become, mentally ill – and offer help to all who are, or might become, mentally ill. Because there’s no telling who might become mentally ill, that means sharing the cost with everyone.
Government is the mechanism we use to share costs with everyone. We collect money from taxes, and spend it on the general welfare.
Because this is a situation in which (a) professionals, rather than amateurs, are much better and more efficient at providing the needed service; and (b) the costs and benefits should be shared fairly among everyone in the country; I think this is a situation that needs government, not personal, action.
When the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. military can send 30,000 more men and women into combat in an undeclared war in violation of the U.S. Constitution, while receiving a Nobel Peace Prize… it would appear as though sanity is merely a relative term in the American lexicon.
Well done and thoughtful. I don’t agree with all of it, the “good armed citizen” meme just doesn’t work out more often than it does it seems to me, and I’ve spent hours and hours trying to find hard stats to prove or disprove it one way or another. In the Aurora case most people with carry permits say that they wouldn’t have pulled their guns, there was no clear shot, and that seems reasonable.
What I did find interesting was a timeline I saw… these events seem to have happened maybe once a decade mid 20th century, but nearly annually in the last 10 years or so. It would take a sociologist to figure out why, but I do wonder if the availability of assault weapons in that time frame figures into it.
However, you have a very valid point, maybe the conversation should at least include mental health, that was long ago swept under the rug, we emptied the hospitals; some of which were, granted, little more than warehouses; but we have never put a replacement in place.
Ninety seconds. It took the police to respond 90 seconds. In that minute and a half, this guy was able to kill 12 people and injure 58 more people. If his gun had not jammed, he would have killed and injured more.
Large magazines and weapons that are meant to kill large numbers of people very fast do not belong in everyday life of Americans where our children live. We are not at war in our Homeland and there is no enemy to fight here at home. Bring back the assault weapons ban. It is common sense.
The only time the national attention veers towards discussion of sane gun control is when a tragedy of this magnitude occurs. Cultural factors largely explain these things. Lifelong saturation in violent media breeds moral midgets, whose sense of empathy is dulled to the point of non-existence, and who are taught to revere power as expressed through violence. Modern kids watch thousands and thousands of murders. With video games, they PRACTICE thousands and thousands of murders. We are born with empathy, and only destroy it with long term, virtually conscious effort. We, as a civil society must not close our eyes to the impact of our collective choices.
I still think the NRA should do something. After all their slogan is “It’s not guns that kill people, it’s people that kill people.” But when a law comes up that would require a background check of a potential purchaser at a gun show, they scream about it.
As I recall, there was a recent murder in Maryland by a young man who was from Oregon but bought his guns from a private party in Albuquerque. Here’s the link: http://www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org/html/media-center/abq_040612.shtml
“The shootings at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center facility left one person dead and five wounded before police killed the shooter. …. According to the newspaper, John Shick, the 30-year-old shooter described as extremely intelligent and increasingly unstable, purchased the 9 mm Makarov and the 9 mm Beretta for $810 in cash last April from John Karnis, an Albuquerque handyman and gun aficionado.
“Karnis told a reporter he asked Shick whether he was over 18, a resident of New Mexico and not a felon – the meager requisites for transacting a face-to-face gun purchase through a private seller in this state.”
Turns out Shick had tried to buy a gun in his home state of Oregon but had been turned down because STATE records revealed his history of mental instability.
Michael H Schneider,
By no means did I intend to suggest that the untrained should attempt to provide counseling or mental health care. The types of things I had in mind are exactly what you are doing – letting someone stay at your house, feeding him, helping in ways you’re able to. Perhaps trying to connect someone who needs counseling or mental health care with a clinic, maybe even help paying for it if that’s needed and you’re able.
I hope that clarification helps.
I heartily agree:
We need to work toward goals that include lower unemployment and poverty rates, more effective schools, more affordable health care, better access to services, improved infrastructure including roads and Internet lines, stronger families and community support systems, and better care for the mentally ill.
However, I have a problem with this:
How many of us know someone who is depressed or on edge but aren’t offering help?
What help? I’m not a trained professional mental health worker. If I tried to muck about with someone’s psyche I’d probably do more harm than good.
I think I have mentioned before that I have a friend who is homeless. He has psychological problems. I let him stay at my house from time to time, and feed him, and try to help him a bit in many ways, but I can’t fix his psychological problems. Nor am I in a position where I can lead him through the deliberately difficult and inadequate public systems for getting assistance (I have problems of my own). I certainly can’t get him psychotropic medications, or even figure out if that’s what he needs. So I’m at my wit’s end as to what I, an amateur with limited resources and abilities, can do to offer the sort of help you’re suggesting.
So instead of asking me to do something which I can’t do, why don’t we strengthen the public systems for mental health care – so instead of asking amateurs to do what they can’t, we pay professionals to do what they’re trained and experienced at doing. I’d pay more in taxes to support such a system, because were it not for accidents and luck I could be homeless and crazy on the streets, too.
This is a good commentary on the Colorado massacre. However, I am baffled why we allow the AR15 Black Rifles like that used in the Colorado theater slaughter. It shoots right through metal – the poor victims! Watch the video on the AR15. The powerful NRA lobby protects this lethal weapon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQUkSIK1UsA