Gun control vs. mental health: the wrong focus - The Idea Log

By Shana Montrose
Guest Commentary

We were merely freshmen. I was 14 when between passing periods someone said there was a hostage situation at nearby Columbine High School. I went home and watched the scene unfold. Flipping between news channels, I watched video of kids my age running from their school and flashes of parents? tearful fearful faces.

In the following weeks we learned about the shooters and the ?trench coat mafia.? The word Columbine became synonymous with ?school shooting,? a term that had yet to be coined. To reclaim their name Columbine High launched a bumped sticker campaign: ?We are Columbine.? Thirteen years of school shootings later: We are all Columbine and we need to start seeing it that way.

Pundits point fingers but lost in the debate of where to lay blame is a deeper conversation about a comprehensive solution.

Gun enthusiasts argue that people this determined will find a way to cause destruction with or without gun control and that it is our job to get dangerous people off the streets. I would argue that it is a lot easier to control guns, than people, and the least we can do is get the guns off the streets, especially semi-automatic and assault weapons.

Most of the guns used in mass killings were purchased legally. The summer of the Aurora shooting, the shooter bought a Remington Model 870 shotgun, a M&P15 semi-automatic rifle, a Clock 22 pistol and ordered 3000 rounds for the M&P15, two magazine holders and a Blackhawk Urban Assault Vest online. The Aurora shooter was rejected from a gun club and the Connecticut shooter was denied when he tried to purchase a gun, but no matter, guns are so easy to come by. The Littleton shooters had a girl buy their guns.

Jails are not mental health facilities and mental health facilities are not jails. We hear people say, ?Well, that kid should have been institutionalized.? This suggests we should ?institutionalize? all smart depressed unaffected high-school loners. The fear of being institutionalized and the ?crazy bin? stigma contributes to avoidance of mental health services, not to mention to rights and dignity of people with mental health problems. Let?s not make villains out of victims of mental health.

Mental health services are not available to all who seek treatment. Not only is mental health considered a pre-existing condition (which makes it challenging to become insured) there are restrictions on mental health benefits. There are exclusions for substance abuse as well as annual limits on the number of mental health visits and on the dollar amount that would be covered.

What about the uninsured? A 19-year-old male in Aurora who grew up one block from the apartment of the Batman cinema shooter came to me seeking a referral for mental health services. He had recently acted violently and wanted to understand why he reacted that way. He was referred to a group therapy session for teens with substance abuse problems though he was sober during the assault and does not abuse drugs or alcohol. He did not find what he was looking for in Aurora and is still not in treatment.

We blame the parents. A few years ago I ran into a parent from my high school. She told me how worried she was about her 22-year-old son who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She said, ?It?s only a matter of time before we lose him.? She did everything within her legal power to take care of him. Because he was over 18, his medical records ?protected? him from the woman trying to protect him from himself. About a year later, he committed suicide.

The young men who kill others before killing themselves seek company in their misery, revenge on society, and visibility after a life of invisibility. The shooters faces land the front-page, their names ring in our ears, and they have Wikipedia pages. The coverage not only glorifies the shooters but also advertises massacre as an outlet to the disturbed. In the year following the shootings at Columbine, George Washington High School was closed or evacuated twice because of ?bomb threats.? We were all waiting for a copycat shooting. The suicide rate rose 12 percent following Marilyn Monroe?s death. Those who said there would not be copycats were dead wrong.

A few months after the Littleton shooting, I received a letter from a boy I who I had recently told I wanted to be ?just friends.? He closed the letter with lyrics from the rock group Korn, ?My life is ripping your heart out and destroying my pain.? We are barraged with violence. I am particularly concerned with the violence in video games and movies that we refuse to regulate. Why do we allow savage killing and rape to be conflated with entertainment and then give these as gifts for Christmas? Perhaps because these games can earn as much as $400 million within 24 hours on the market ? .

The summer after the shooting at Columbine, I attended a youth leadership camp where I met a psychiatrist who was called in to train the mental health support team in Littleton before the school was reopened. I walked around the empty building with a small group of adults as the principal pointed to the classrooms and stairwells where students and teachers fell to their death. I was invited to participate in a community building activity that tried to teach the students of Columbine High to be more respectful of people who do not fit in, to expose the fact that everyone is insecure and going through something. It was really powerful.

I knew nice kids from good families who committed suicide or bullied others. The ?geeks? spent hours alone playing games on the Internet such that their only peer interaction was a text message, ?are you ready to watch me kill you?? Technology enhances social networks for those who have them, but it can help the socially isolated to further retreat. A study published this month in Australia found that students who had been involved in cyber-bullying as well as being victimized were two times as likely to have been exposed to violent online games, and nearly four times as likely for those involved in bullying others.

We don?t just need gun control; we need social reform that includes restricting guns and funding mental health services and research. We have very little understanding of these troubled young men who spend months plotting to kill innocent people. We need to re-conceptualize entertainment in the American psyche first by regulating the sale of violent entertainment for astronomical profits. We need to rebuild real communities; those that have been displaced by online communities. I have spent half my life watching kids die in school. Is that how we want to keep living?

Shana Montrose graduated from George Washington High School in 2002 and is currently a graduate student at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Source: http://blogs.denverpost.com/opinion/2013/02/27/gun-control-vs-mental-health-the-wrong-focus/34658/