So--another mass shooting at another school. I can't dismiss it with an airy "Stuff happens," as can Jeb Bush. Instead I somberly contemplate the aftermath. The whole course of events is scripted as predictably as a Greek tragedy. The shooter dies (or, more rarely, is captured). In the days to come, his (seems it's always a male) psyche is probed and analysed, and he receives at least as much publicity, and usually more, than his victims. Almost invariably he's found to have suffered from some mental disorder.
The President delivers a sorrowful speech of condolence with a call to action, which, of course, never follows. The NRA and its sycophants deliver some lame excuse for taking no action. There are tales of heroism on the part of some of the shooter's targets. Flags are flown at half mast. Shrines are improvised, and it's a major, sensational story in the mainstream media for a week or two, and then things go back to normal.
Until the next time.
For the NRA, and its purchased legislators, it's something of PR nuisance. Why can't the gun nuts just quietly buy the merchandise without raising people's hackles? But there are the old tried and true excuses. Guns don't kill, people do. People will find some way even without guns. Overlooking the fact that guns make it ever so easy to kill a lot of people very quickly and easily. And overlooking that countries with strict gun controls seldom see the same degree of mayhem that has become so common as to be routine here.
Or there's the excuse that a weapons free zone offers an easy target, and that if "good guys with guns" were present, there would be no attack. Overlooking the fact that untrained weapons holders are likely to be at least as dangerous to other targets as they are to the shooter. Just last week, such a hero, in attempting to break up a car-jacking, wound up hitting the victim in the head .
Interestingly, in this latest episode in Oregon, it wasn't a weapons free zone. There were present some concealed permit carriers who were armed. One of them has said he didn't return fire because he was afraid the arriving police might mistake him for the shooter. In my estimation, very good thinking.
And, as a last resort, the excuse is offered that instead of regulating guns, we should do a better job of identifying and restricting the dangerously mentally ill. Great idea. But there are problems.
In 1949, when I was ten years old, my father, an M.D., decided to specialize and took on a three-years long residency in psychiatry. He moved his family to Long Island, New York, where we lived in staff housing on the grounds of one of the state's huge, multi-building, hospitals for the mentally ill. Most of the wards were locked, as the patients were there under involuntary commitment.
There was a lot wrong with those institutions, not least of which was the ease with which it was possible to get people involuntarily committed. And too many patients were simply warehoused with attendants who had more the attitude of prison guards than caregivers. And, of course, the institutions were expensive to maintain. But they did keep the mentally ill off the streets and out of sight.
So in succeeding years, reforms were made. Involuntary commitment was made increasingly difficult, and the psychiatric profession moved to the position that most patients would do better out in the community so long as outpatient services, and supervision, were made available in community clinics. Accordingly, the hospitals were mostly phased out and emptied, but funnily enough, money for the community clinics never materialized.
So today, the mentally ill are pretty much left to fend for themselves, and a considerable portion wind up homeless. But even for those who are somewhat functional, there are scant services available. Most health insurers limit the benefits for mental illness, and even for identifiably dangerous individuals, commitment to state institutions for any length of time is legally difficult.
So if the NRA is serious about withholding weapons from the dangerously mental ill, let's see them push for the establishment of community clinics, as was promised in the 1960's. Let's see them push for serious background checks for those wanting to purchase guns, including closing the loopholes for private and gun show sales. Otherwise the NRA's call for identifying dangerous individuals is just another subterfuge and excuse.
Ah, well. Of course they won't do that.
My condolences to the families and friends of the latest sacrifices to the great god Gun Manufacturer Profits. I wish these sacrifices could be the last. But I can only foresee more. Many, many more.