The biggest problem behind incidents like the Newtown shootings isn't video game violence or guns, althought I currently think they can both contribute negatively to an individual situation. The main issue is mental health is mostly ignored in the US and when it comes up the person with the problems is a "psycho nut-case freak". The American public needs to be educated about mental health, the diseases and conditions need to be de-stigmatized and people who seek treatment should be encouraged, not demonized or ridiculed. Most importantly there needs to be somewhere to go when a problem is reaching crisis proportions. A mental disorder should be seen and treated no differently than asthma or any other disease.
From what we know, the Sandy Hook shooter's mother tried to treat his mental issues herself. (http://soa.li/YkqZPGl) She apparently avoided getting him any sort of professional treatment. His issues obviously just kept getting worse. She bought him dozens of the most violent games available. Bought him multiple guns (legally...). No one knows if she was worried when his obsession with mass-murderers was organized into a spreadsheet that took a 4 foot wide printer to produce in something like a 9 point font. By all accounts she tried to do right by her son, but it seems like she didn't know how to go about it right and didn't ask for help from people who do. Rather she isolated her son and herself into an insular little world. Why? As far as I can see, either because she didn't want the stigma associated with a serious diagnosis or ( more likely) people here in the US have no idea where to go with a problem that's getting bad like this one.
To which I would add mostly unassisted.
As someone who has dealt with mental issues with a loved one I know how difficult it is and how long it takes to realize it's impossible to help an irrational person by dealing with them rationally. You can't have someone committed to an institution because there are no institutions, even when you finally admit the sick individual is a threat to themself and/or others. Law enforcement won't do anything until after a violent act has been committed. In this situation, you're left with virtually no choices to help someone and prevent a tragedy.
America really needs to step up it's efforts to educate and provide resources for people with severe mental/emotional problems and those around them so they don't end up doing something like this, or much more commonly, hurting themselves or detaching from society, living on the streets, and on the fringe.
Most mentally ill people DO NOT KILL. A person will kill if it is in themselves to do so. If you kill someone, you were always going to kill someone (Well, unless it is an accidental death obviously). To simply say "It's Mental Health" is painting everyone who has a mental illness as a potential killer, which is NOT the case.
1 Like sorry , this is wrong. unacceptable violence comes from sociopaty, as a broad and blurry concept as mental illness itself. a tangible definition for it would be 'personality diverges from socially acceptable', yet very vague. if a guy enters your home and runs to your wife with a knife at hand, and you have a gun at hand , what do you do? exactly, that's violence. yet if you don't shoot, doesn't it make you look mentally ill? ask the lions and tigers what's the reason for violence. ask Muhammad Ali.ask Raiden. the point is, these occurrences will always occur, since the man is exactly what it is. a living animal. statistically, there's much less violence nowadays than a thousand years ago (I mean, proportionally). The fuss is because in this era there's information.
@edjos What you said about information at the end is true, we live in a world where the news is at our finger tips matter where we go, so we just hear about it more. Back when there was no computer or phone, information passed through MUCH slower, and in some cases not at all. We live in the age of media saturation where news is thrown in our faces 24/7 365 days a year.
also, by no means it's an only American issue. it just stands out there because its more frequent there than in the other developed countries, and, well, we outsiders always like to bash them...
@Simplythebest12 i promote violence. and so do you.
whenever you feel something that is violent and react.
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would you say that we have become a rather large organism.
@Simplythebest12 In that line of thought ... video gaes also promote violence ... and you intereact with it !!!
3 Like Most current problems in American society today can be traced to the breakdown of the family structure in this country. That includes problems with violent behavior.
2 Like @shadow131990 Social experiences are huge, including families. Id argue that a terrible family trumps bullying, though thats not to say that bullying etc. isnt huge either.
1 Like I do believe in my opinion that guns do have a part in why these things happen (Sandy Hook in specific) The mother may have legally bought the guns, but she gave them to someone who shouldn't have one. In my eyes that's like the guy hanging out behind the liquor store, and buying booze for the kids. Last time I checked that's illegal in the U.S.
I also would have to agree that guns don't kill people. People kill people with guns. Instead of blaming video games or the media for reasons this guy did what he did, we should look towards the obvious reason. The man had a mental problem that caused him to not understand or conform to the rules of society. He therefore had nothing to stop him since there was (in his mind) nothing to lose. Why people want to blame things that aren't responsible for actions made or have a small influence compared to what was the obvious reason, I don't know. What I do know though, is that it needs to stop, and people need to wake up from whatever weird sleep they're in and realize what the real problem is here.
@Frabbley But the only purpose of a guns is to kill it isn't like a car which can also kill people and it isn't the main purpose of a car and well ... they had to make their car safer and do crash test even if it is the fault of the driver.
@Coco_pierrot @Frabbley Thank you for mentioning that, guns are made for killing, while cars are made for getting you to point A to Point B. There are also more laws concerning cars, than there are for guns. You cannot drive a car without insurance, your license can get suspended, and saftey tests MUST be done to cars to make sure they are safe. Why do we regulate that, but not guns? It makes no sense. The thing made for killing, is easier to get than the thing made for driving.
2 Like The problem, in many of these cases, IS the mental health process. The drugs themselves. It takes the duration of a persons youth you learn to live with themselves and understand how their brain works and how to control their thoughts and actions based on responses repercussion. It's not supposed to be easy, but it can be done. The true danger is never allowing people learn how they work. We all look at them from the outside, and think things are better off because we don't see what's happening on the inside... or moreover... what's NOT happening. Nearly all of the people that "snap" WERE on medication. The snapping nearly always happens when they decide to stop taking their medication. They know how their brain really wants to work, and they don't feel like themselves while taking the drugs... but the problem is that they never learned to deal with themselves without the drugs. that vital process of self understanding was taken away from them, and they actually think they can control it. They can't. And they snap. An adult taking medication for the first time might be a little different, as they spent their lives understanding how they are, and perhaps there's something they truly understand they can't deal with... but that's long after they know how their own brain works. I honestly think everyone has this mental health debate ass backwards.
and just as an interesting note... try to think about some of the senseless violence, and how it's escalated... and then think of the times drugs started getting handed out to kids as if it was magic mind altering candy. The human race has been raising unruly children for a really long time... and they've managed to get by without having to drug them.
@kpolicoff agreed. therapy is just as good if not better than handing out a bunch of medication
1 Like Thats because mental health is still basically a fringe science. Theres hardly any proven actually quantifiable treatment for tons of mental illnesses. If someone is mentally unstable you can take them to a ton of different doctors and its highly possible for each one to have a different diagnosis. In the meantime, the unstable people are allowed to roam around freely. I dont really think its fair to blame society's lack of knowledge of mental illness for this person's or anyone else's mental issues. For the simple fact there are a lot of people who are for a lack of a better term, evil. Some people do just want to see the world burn. It might be caused by mental illness, but theres also no garauntee that these people can be helped. They might not want help.
Using the excuse that this guy's mother tried to treat him herself because she didnt want the stigma doesnt really give any real excuse for his actions. If anything it was proof that she was also mentally ill and culpable as well, since she gave her son that she knew was unstable free access to firearms, encouraged and trained him in their use.
While it might be realistic to say that the US needs to improve its mental healthcare system, especially with the flood of vets about to return from the middle east, a more realistic goal would be to actually keep with mental issues from getting guns, which is a lot easier to do than cure someone's mental illness.
@oflowwho would stand to gain from the world burning anyway. is that truely evil. theres no way to get rid of the evil. maybe its just natural selection.
maybe.... defending yourself may seem the most evil and violent when viewed from another perspective.
defending yourself even when those that are harming you are or are not evil to begin with. gang wars. police brutality. the line is undefined.
evil may come with a noble beleif.. or a just idea. when food is scarce or when there is no room for 2 to survive.
the human race is resilient. alot more people died at a younger age. and more often. you can tell that the family sizes havnt changed, its the death rate.
if you look back in your family history, you may find that there are ALOT of dead/unborn babies. or even young children. natural selection (broad definition) has changed since then.
the reason behind a school shooting.: "Truely Evil" "human nature" "suicidal" "survival instinct" "retarded human" "lack of proper guidance" <== i choose all of the above.
would a proper solution be to lock everyone up and do a mental evaluation to provide safety for everyone?
or just take away the dangerous toys from the people, -where would that stop? and when does it turn into a pandemic. or even worse. LABELLED.
have you heard of 'Rogue Elephants' in the wild. most interesting. would this be similar to humans
@iminsanescott I can agree to a degree but your examples are polarized. Theres a big difference between doing crimes for survival and walking into a movie theater, college lecture hall or elementary school and opening up on random people.
There are realistic ways to stop gun violence, the facts are the politicians are too busy arguing semantics because they are all on the take from lobbyists that make money off of guns and gun violence.
For example, you wouldnt have to take away ALL guns. 85-percent of gun homicides are committed using handguns. We dont live in colonial times or the Old West anymore when you might have actually needed a sidearm. Realistically theres no real reason for anyone to have a handgun. You could satisfy the 2nd Amendment by letting people own rifles and shotguns for hunting/home defense but you dont need handguns or concealable weapons. I say this as someone that has hunted and owned guns since age 12 a I come from a military family.
There are also reasonable ways to get rid of them over time. Just like the Feds got people to get rid of their Tommy guns and BARs in the 1930-40s. They implemented a huge tax on owning automatic weapons and most people just got rid of them in time. Adjust the Firearms Act Stamp fee for inflation and the cost would be enough to deter most people from even wanting to own them. Increase the penalty for possessing one and over time they will go away.
I personally would rather see everyone own assault weapons with no handguns at all. The number of gun homicides committed using rifles is the same as the number committed using knives. Handguns are the real problem and our political leaders are too busy pandering and arguing semantics about assault weapons and sizes of clips.
My point is that even though evil is an abstract/subjective title, there are people in the world that do things that are wrong on purpose for reason beyond comprehension. They dont need to gain anything from wanting the world they burn they just do. People like Son of Sam, Dahmer, Manson or lately all the mass shooters. People like to argue the 'slippery slope' argument, but thats kind of disingenuous when you talk about guns because they are tools that make the act of killing someone a lot easier. Its instantaneous and can be done at range. Its a lot easier to shoot someone (both mentally and physically) that say actually kill them with a melee weapon. Just like heavy machinery and other tools are heavily regulated, guns should be the hardest of all tools to obtain.
Its obviously a problem because besides countries in the third world, the US has far too many gun homicides compared to other countries in the first world. You might ask 'where does it stop' but it doesnt seem to be a problem in the UK, or Japan, or Germany and they have these type of laws that obviously work. They have less gun homicides in their entire countries in a year than some of our largest cities do.
or just take away the dangerous toys from the people, -where would that stop? and when does it turn into a pandemic. or even worse. LABELLED (as something other than pandemic).
1 Like i like how the only way to treat 'mental health problems' is to add DRUGS. sometimes EXPIREMENTAL DRUGS. The scary part is that once you live it, you realize how dangerous it really is.
now that thought alone is messed up.
mental illness in many ways is a HUGE PROBLEM.
and the solution to it isn't solved by adding HEALTH CARE DONATIONS.
nor is it possible to expect the solution to have a bottom line.
American society is really messed up today. We have politicians who act like little children incapable of handling the country's state of affairs. We have the media stirring up discontent and brainwashing the public. Society is so confused they don't know what is true or not. Everyone talks but little is done. Mental health, media violence in movies, TV programming, gaming and gun control all need to be addressed. But there's a Constitutional battle between 1st Amendment and 2nd Amendment rights going on in our society. The tone of Washington and the media and radio talk shows contribute to setting off individuals as much as anything in our society. I believe many in this country are turned off by the negativity and others are set off by it.
Diagnosing someone as mental isn't a serious cause for concern. It's as much a solution as when doctors would drill a hole into the skull to release evil spirits. So while you think educating people about psychotics would prevent another incident like the shooting, you also need to think of how and when the mental illness started to prevent mental illness itself. This could be anything: Child abuse, rape, bullying, child neglect, trauma, food poisoning, rabies, tumors, etc.
yep
or a case of too many thoughts of the mind get out of control.
anger , anxiety , ego, lust, jelousy, worries.. once this melting pot adds up , and then becomes constant thinking .
loneliness, depression , hatred, becomes ... and then the person flips .
And is like a time bomb.
1 Like I think what people need to understand is that mental illness is just that an ILLNESS. No one says anything about lacking responsibility to someone who comes down with a cold likewise many people with mental disorders are not responsible for their condition. It can be triggered genetically or environmentally and the person has little to no control. Like the author said we need to increase awareness and education as a society and provide assistance to those who truly need help. Great read thanks ggregd!
Everyone has a breaking point but for some its right on top, and there reaction may be something like this other than just running away to Jamaica for example.
@holtrocks I agree. We are all capable of achieving something stupid. What stops us? Societal rules. The moment we think the rules don't apply is when we also think we have nothing to lose,.
1 Like Aside from the sandy case which I know very little about aren't these school shootings usually performed by bullied kids? Easy to say they're all nuts but anyone can go nuts if being treated like shit.
@Saketume Most of these people are loners. Most cases there is not any bullying at all, sometimes the person is just mentally ill and perceives they were bullied. Also, they take it out on people who more likely than not NEVER EVEN TALKED TO THE PERSON. If it was about bullying, just the bullies would be killed, but it's not.
That's easy, it's people's sin natures, their inclination towards evil from the mundane to the monumental which will cause them to think bad thoughts, which lead to bad actions, which lead to bad habits, which lead to bad character, which lead to a bad destiny.
2 Like @badwedgie00 and that leads to fear and fear leads to anger and anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering and suffering leads to the dark side
1 Like This is typical of people without guns thinking the thing to blame is the gun. Gun's don't kill people, people do. Blame mental health issues...that's so ridiculous. Firstly sanity and insanity are a very fine line, secondly some of the people who are most successful in life are psychopath's. Many Lawyers and CEO's of company's are psychopath's. No that doesn't mean they will go murder a bunch of people what psychopath means is
A person with a psychopathic personality, which manifests as amoral and antisocial behavior, lack of abilityto love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, failure to learn fromexperience, etc.
Mental health is something we simply don't understand well enough to do anything about. @Conan1985 big difference between someone with psychopathic traits and a full blown sociopath. i doubt these lawyers and CEO's spent their childhood torturing animals. also a big difference between said sociopath and, say, someone with bi-polar. you cant really just lump everything into 'sane' and 'insane'. im also not sure i would classify psychopaths as successful people, part of the problem more like.
@Conan1985 being a psychopath and being mentally ill are totally different things. There are a wide range of diagnosable mental illness's that are triggered by a wide range of variables. It is not as simple as sane or insane. What the author is trying to point out is that we need to raise awareness of those distinctions.
Also where did guns come up?
@Conan1985 thats the same rhetoric the automotive industry used to try to prevent the manufacture/install/testing of safety features like the air bag, structural work that didnt skewer people during low speed accidents... "cars dont kill people, bad drivers kill people"
1 Like I think his mom buying him guns and teaching him how to use them is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard of. Yet these media bozos and political bozos have no intention of acknowledging that.
It's a hard debate to have about mental issues. It is all screwed up. At the same time, it doesn't seem like there's many doctors or anyone out there that are any good at their job anymore just a rare few that actually know exactly what they are doing. I've had plenty of family members that go to different doctors then they end up taking 10-20 different pills throughout the day, I think that is insane too. Who knows what would've happened differently with the situation if he had gone for professional help but at the very least he would've been strapped up in a pink pillowed room but doctors still really piss me the hell off.
3 Like Actually most of the US killers have been on the same medication, i think the medication and society are the real problem. Not videogames or movies
There are those that are born ill and beyond help. Then there are those that are not, but get ridiculed and bullied and treated like shit by society to the point that they break and do something very, very bad. I have no doubt that if everyone treated everyone with nothing but respect we would have less of these tragedies. So I will say it's not only a mental ilness problem, but it also has to do with society. It's human nature to be an asshole to those you see as lesser than yourself and we should focus on that as well as mental health. We truly are the worst predators of them all.
Violence isn't just a product of insanity, because people who are sane commit violent acts.
I came across this post from the front page of the site. I read the post and have to say that I agree with most of your points.
My sister works for a college in a city near where we grew up. She works for a department that helps students with alcohol, drugs, mental health, and more. While she was home, she got some text messages from a student that turned into me (staying up till 3am) and her till 4 am. She was on her cell phone talking to the girl that was so distraught about a personal matter that happened earlier, she was on the house phone with the cops in the city. She was telling the girl to talk to the cops when they showed up and go with them, so she wouldn't hurt herself. Then my sister was on the phone with the doctor and the girl after she was taken to where she could get some help and be looked on during the night.
I agree that more people need to be educated on mental health. The department my sister works for as a new program that will teach the rest of the college staff on how to help students that show and signs of any problems, or help talk to a student if the student comes to them. Instead of saying that the student goes to the counseling center and make an appointment. So mental health is always changing and the ways to handle or help handle mental health is also changing.
1 Like @freedomspopular I think you have quite an intelligent response. What you bring up was quite a problem when there were a great deal of mental institutions in the United States during the 1960s. It is a point in Ken Kesey's book, later adapted into a movie, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".
I think the writer of this article has good intentions and perhaps the shooters do suffer from a mental disease, but defining what it is near impossible. "What is mental disease?" is a broad question with many subjective answers and with very little objective proof. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" criticizes this with Dale Harding, a homosexual, being portrayed as mentally ill, when in face he is the most sane of all.
His example, along with others in this move, show that an institutionalized approach isn't a solution since it doesn't deal with people on an individual level, but an institutionalized manner where everyone follows the same routine, and goes through the same type of treatment (talking in groups, following the same schedule, etc.). From a financial standpoint, it would be a great deal of money to treat people on a one on one manner.
However, from a ethical standpoint, they are marginalized, and treated the same as one group "mentally diseased", but each mentally diseased person is disturbed in their own way. Thus the definition becomes more broad since many people fall under this category but with different problems. The definition even becomes more broad as there are revisions to the DSM (the official book to all things psychology, in a nutshell) as well as additions by psychologists over the years.
Because of this, "mental disease" is too fluid to be the main cause of a person's action since, and it isn't the problem of real world violence. Mental disease and real world violence are both too broad and too subjective to define. Educating people would only do so much unless they knew enough about mental diseases to become practical, and apply it to help someone, to make a diagnosis and allow them to seek help. That's almost like asking everyone to get Psychology degrees or asking for a rewrite on public education to include enough psychology classes for people to have practical amount of knowledge.
So what is the real problem behind real world violence? I can't really say. I don't think the writer of this article can say it either. It could be the person's upbringing, financial situation, drug abuse, racism, misunderstandings, mental disease, alcohol intoxication, etc. It could be all of the above. It could be some of the above or things not even listed. But one thing is certain, it isn't one problem and to try to label it as that is just as naive as the institutionalized and marginalized approach to dealing with people as seen in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."
@cloudstrife75 If he was sane that its about responsibility. If he is insane its about needing help.
@cloudstrife75 I'm pretty sure responsibility isn't a factor in your life when you're crazy ~_^.
Crazy people aren't exactly the most logical of beings.
@cloudstrife75 Must the two be mutually exclusive? I should like to know where the author earned his masters.
