Thank you Amber. Perry is my hometown. I graduated from PHS 50 years ago. So complicated as you suggest. We know everyone involved and have so much empathy for the shooter and his family as well as the innocent victims. It's hard to know where to put your emotions. Thank you for addressing this tragedy.
Thank you for making this point. I knew as soon as I saw you had posted that it would be, at least in part, about the extraordinary problem of pathologizing people as a way of protecting unlimited gun rights. Such an important point to make -- as you point out, it is problematic in two respects: it actually interferes with finding real answers to gun violence, and in the meantime it unfairly stigmatizes groups of people in destructive ways. It has been easy for people to post hac redefine mental illness to include all shooters; "you'd have to be crazy to shoot up a school!" And so the mere act of the shooting "proves" the mental illness. But every feeling of hate (for example, in the racially motivated shooting in a Tops grocery in Buffalo, or the anti-LGBTQ killings in the Pulse nightclub in Florida) isn't mental illness. And hopeless or being overwhelmed without adult tools for coping are not mental illness (although they may be mental health issues and may be helped by mental health access and interventions). In the meantime, people with actual diagnosed mental illnesses become unfairly suspect: my absolutely harmless relatives on the spectrum, or with anxiety disorders are suddenly potential threats, while the real threat -- the guns -- continue to be ignored despite being the common denominator, and the only differentiator from other countries. People avoid the real issue by making those unlike them, those with mental illness, into the "shiny thing," the distraction.
It isn't mental illness. It's access to (and the culture around) guns in this country.
So much of the challenge is that our language fails us. We only have a couple of very ambiguous phrases to describe thinking and behavior and emotions that veer off from "normal" but those phrases are so inadequate at really distinguishing between the vast array from mild depression to a full-blown psychotic episode to violent psychopathy. We need to expand the language of mental health because these generalities are harming us all. Thank you for your comment and your engagement on this difficult topic.
Thank you, Amber, for this. You have done a great job of layering pieces of programmatic Swiss cheese needed to reduce gun violence. No other first world country has been so reluctant to do what needs to be done. It’s as if the second amendment is holy and written in 18 point BOLD while the rest of the rights we cherish are just a postscript. Or, maybe we just need to follow the money.
Thank you Amber for this incredibly informative piece. You helped me figure out how to articulate my thoughts on gun violence. There is so much work to do to bring social justice to the forefront of our work.
Thank you Amber. Perry is my hometown. I graduated from PHS 50 years ago. So complicated as you suggest. We know everyone involved and have so much empathy for the shooter and his family as well as the innocent victims. It's hard to know where to put your emotions. Thank you for addressing this tragedy.
Sending love to you and your hometown. It's tragedy upon tragedy in small towns when everyone knows everyone. The hurt is exponential.
Thank you for making this point. I knew as soon as I saw you had posted that it would be, at least in part, about the extraordinary problem of pathologizing people as a way of protecting unlimited gun rights. Such an important point to make -- as you point out, it is problematic in two respects: it actually interferes with finding real answers to gun violence, and in the meantime it unfairly stigmatizes groups of people in destructive ways. It has been easy for people to post hac redefine mental illness to include all shooters; "you'd have to be crazy to shoot up a school!" And so the mere act of the shooting "proves" the mental illness. But every feeling of hate (for example, in the racially motivated shooting in a Tops grocery in Buffalo, or the anti-LGBTQ killings in the Pulse nightclub in Florida) isn't mental illness. And hopeless or being overwhelmed without adult tools for coping are not mental illness (although they may be mental health issues and may be helped by mental health access and interventions). In the meantime, people with actual diagnosed mental illnesses become unfairly suspect: my absolutely harmless relatives on the spectrum, or with anxiety disorders are suddenly potential threats, while the real threat -- the guns -- continue to be ignored despite being the common denominator, and the only differentiator from other countries. People avoid the real issue by making those unlike them, those with mental illness, into the "shiny thing," the distraction.
It isn't mental illness. It's access to (and the culture around) guns in this country.
So much of the challenge is that our language fails us. We only have a couple of very ambiguous phrases to describe thinking and behavior and emotions that veer off from "normal" but those phrases are so inadequate at really distinguishing between the vast array from mild depression to a full-blown psychotic episode to violent psychopathy. We need to expand the language of mental health because these generalities are harming us all. Thank you for your comment and your engagement on this difficult topic.
Thank you, Amber, for this. You have done a great job of layering pieces of programmatic Swiss cheese needed to reduce gun violence. No other first world country has been so reluctant to do what needs to be done. It’s as if the second amendment is holy and written in 18 point BOLD while the rest of the rights we cherish are just a postscript. Or, maybe we just need to follow the money.
Well said. Mass shootings are so complicated. “Mental illness” is an easy answer and doesn’t require us to examine our culture around guns.
Thank you, Amber.
Thank you Amber for this incredibly informative piece. You helped me figure out how to articulate my thoughts on gun violence. There is so much work to do to bring social justice to the forefront of our work.
Excellent, Amber!
A good post. Thanks
A really important piece - thank you.