to think lack of mental health care is not why the USA has school shootings

[sashh]

Listening to Radio 4, they are talking to comeone from Columbia University.

He is saying that it is difficult to get mental health care in the US unless you have really good insurance.

Apparently the US press are saying that if MH treatment was better then there would be fewer shootings.

Now I know some, very few, people with mental health problems can be violent.

But surely the problem is not menatl health provision but that it is so easy to get a gun whether you have a mental illness or not. Are violent or not.

I believe there should be better mental health (and all health) care. But I don't think that will stop school shootings.

I don't think banning all guns would either - for a start there are so many oout there it would be impossible and we have such strict laws but we still had Dumblane.

Sorry sort of rambling here, can anyone articulate this better?

She said there's very little provision for individuals who are mentally ill and violent - every few months her husband has to arrest the same person

As it is most everywhere else. Regarding the UK
The trust says 90% of inmates have at least one diagnosed mental health disorder Which points to why this happens more often in the States than other countries as being multi faceted, complicated and connected to an array of elements of their culture. I don't think there is a nice, tidy, "now we can do something about the root cause and stop this" answer out there.

Discussing how perhaps it wasn't the brightest or bestest move to reduce mental health facilities to the point where trying to get a bed for somebody in evident crisis is similar to trying to procure Dodo eggs is by and large a good thing.

But what is worrying me about the current discussion about MH in this specific context is that I don't think it is going to do those suffering mental ill health much good in the shorter or longer term by having the general current state and style of provision being picked over on via the tightly specific lens of the mass slaughter of young children, with a "we must DO something! NOW!!" view to avoiding more atrocities.

There is already much resistance to accepting the reality that the mentally ill are far, far, far more likely to be harmed and killed than harm or kill. The desire to make sense of an atrocity in order to avoid a repeat is wholly understandable, but I don't think the sensationalist media we have today is well placed to make sure that the (largely unmoderated and suffering from a massive dose of the Dunning?Kruger effect) discussion is based on accurate, ethical and non-knee jerky lines of enquiry.

It's true that serious mental ill health is part of the equation in how/why these awful, awful mass murders happen. Provision is an issue. But I am concerned that the pro gun lobby groups will leap upon the (largely well meaning) discussion re mental health provision and warp the conversation into something far less benign, as a shield to distract and protect against any changes in legislation.

Because it's emotive and appeals to a fairly widespread mistrust towards those with MH issues it's a real concern where this focus is going to end up and what the ramifications will be.

Children in America are 11 times more likely to die of a gunshot wound than children in other developed countries.

They are 13 times more likely to be murdered with guns.

This blog post is heart breaking.

I can grasp the fact that hunters and farmers need guns. I can grasp the fact that your average citizen wants one or two guns in their home for protection, as its enshrined in the constitution and their culture.

What I can't grasp is why anybody needs more than 2 or 3 guns and why they might need to be assault rifles, semi-automatics or whatever. That's the bit that needs to change and I dont see it as infringing on anyone's rights or freedom.

I wonder if maybe the gun laws will change this time around. Obama doesn't seem to be particularly pro-guns. He's in for four more years, and knows that this is it (he doesn't need to try to get reelected) so if he wants he can push for these sorts of policies.

I also don't understand the whole super-pro gun thing. My American relatives are virtually card-carrying NRA members and it does astound me, all the pro gun stuff they put on FB (most commonly things along the lines of "you want to make guns illegal? Since when did criminals care about what's legal and what's not")

There was a man called something Pratt on 5live Breakfast yesterday (the other guest said the NRA disapproved of him as an extremist ) who suggested what you've seen, Pin i.e. arm all the school staff so they can shoot back.

No mention of what happens if the next person to 'snap' is someone who is armed and works in a school though.

Although I would like to think fewer guns around would mean this kind of thing happens less, I am sure it must be more complex than that. I find it impossible to understand.

"arm all the school staff so they can shoot back"

Yes, the common response from the pro gun types (including one of my relatives) is ... buy more guns. After the shooting in the cinema (admittedly he was a marine, so not an amateur) he said "if I had been there I would have shot the shooter". Well yes. I wonder what proportion of people in the cinema did have guns, but didn't bring them.

My uncle in South Africa has a gun, and has had for years. The one time he needed it he didn't have it. It was locked up in a safe in his bedroom. So not the most useful place ... (though one of the safest).

One thing I wonder about the pro gun idiots people is why they have such difficulty with applying common sense. I mean, when someone takes a relatives gun(s) and goes and kills innocents they all say, "well those guns should have been somewhere secure". And yet they also say they need guns to protect themselves in an emergency. In which case, surely you would need the guns to be easily accessible?

They can't really be easy to get in an emergency and yet difficult to get if you fancy going on a murderous rampage? So which is more important?

This article is very interesting, talking about how keeping a gun at home significantly increases the risks to yourself, spouse, children and neighbours of being killed or injured with a gun. Strangely, scientific studies have been unable to demonstrate that there are any health benefits associated with owning a gun.

I think a lot of gun owners are very responsible (or there'd be more deaths) and just like everyone else can't imagine doing this. I compare it to owning a "bully" breed dog. Others who don't own them see them as dangerous and risky but the owners know those dogs to be good, safe dogs. (of course, guns and dogs are not alike, but I use the comparison of them as it's polarizing).

And just like Switzerland, the majority of gun deaths in the US are suicides. 9000 homicides to 20,000 suicides. Not that this makes anything better.

TBF (although of course it isn't FAIR, it's far from it) the "children killed by guns in the US" stats include everyone up to 18 or 19, including gang members who joined in their teens. And it doesn't make it any less tragic, I am not for one second saying that. and I would like to see restrictions on guns, and quickly.

But I think a lot of people think those statistics mean children killed by guns in their own home, etc, when it isn't the case.

It depends on where you live as well. As I said, everyone around here owns (hunting) guns. But people I know in other areas won't let their children play at houses that have them. Although some of that changed when Freakonomics came out with this study.

Consider the parents of an eight-year-old girl named, say, Molly. Her two best friends, Amy and Imani, each live nearby. Molly?s parents know that Amy?s parents keep a gun in their house, so they have forbidden Molly to play there. Instead, Molly spends a lot of time at Imani?s house, which has a swimming pool in the backyard. Molly?s parents feel good about having made such a smart choice to protect their daughter.

But according to the data, their choice isn?t smart at all. In a given year, there is one drowning of a child for every 11,000 residential pools in the United States. (In a country with 6 million pools, this means that roughly 550 children under the age of ten drown each year.) Meanwhile, there is 1 child killed by a gun for every 1 million-plus guns. (In a country with an estimated 200 million guns, this means that roughly 175 children under ten die each year from guns.) The likelihood of death by pool (1 in 11,000) versus death by gun (1 in 1 million-plus) isn?t even close: Molly is roughly 100 times more likely to die in a swimming accident at Imani?s house than in gunplay at Amy?s.