So now we face our demons and children lay dead.
In the 1970s this nation decided to end institutional care for the mentally ill. It was supposedly better to allow the mentally ill to use outpatient services. There were two reasons given for this massive change in society: First, end the horror stories of abuse by minimum wage workers with low educational skills. Secondly, make it cheaper for States by letting families handle the problem on their own through their own insurance.
At the time, I thought it would be better to spend money to hire qualified people to serve the needs of patients, rather than let them wander the streets. Many families abandoned their mentally ill family members due to prejudice regarding mental illness. Or, patients who were too ill and abandoned, wandered away to live on the streets alone.
Consequently, hundreds of thousands of people suffering from mental illness, now came to live and move freely through society. No great effort was made to ensure that outpatients received their medications or treatments, since political correctness had been the movement to undo institutions. Save money and let them be free from responsibility was the new battle cry.
Instead of putting money and manpower into our institutions to improve them, we politically corrected ourselves into a huge problem.
We see now that political correctness can sometimes be taken to the extreme. 20 children have now paid for this extremism.
It isn't always about guns. It is about our own stupidity. We keep getting rid of things that work well, as long as they are maintained and dump them when it is inconvienent to hire and pay for qualified people to care for our mentally ill.
Outpatient care of the mentally ill is appropriate for those who have responded well to treatment and are willing to continue to get better. It is not appropriate to allow the mentally ill, who refuse or ignore both medications and treatment, to wander the streets.
We are so goddamned stupid, it kills.