For those who are living under a rock and don't know, a massacre occurred on Dec 14th in Newtown, CT. A 20 year old man shot his mother in the face at their home then, as if that wasn't enough, he proceeded to the Sandy Cook Elementary School in Newtown, CT and walked in and started shooting people… teachers, administrators, and students. Kids. Kindergardeners to 4th graders. Innocent children. People who had their whole lives ahead of them. If that doesn't make you sick, then you have real problems. (I have chosen to leave this young man's name out of my post because this is not about him. This is not meant to draw attention to him. He does not deserve the recognition that he is receiving on every news channel in America, the people who need recognition are the victims.)
But since no one has discovered a way to travel back in time and prevent such a tragedy from occurring, we must learn from this incident and others like it to figure out what we can do differently to prevent this from occurring in the future. What is the answer? I don't claim to have the all-encompassing, 100% right answer here, but there are some things that really need to be discussed. READ THIS ENTIRE BLOG BEFORE JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS PLEASE!!
First and foremost, it seems like everyone is now jumping on the gun control bandwagon. I would also say that probably 75% of those people are definitely not gun owners and have probably never even handled a firearm. The thing with guns is, unless someone pulls the trigger, it is a paperweight. Guns don't kill people. Its the person behind it that has the intent to kill people. So, you say, "Well, if they didn't have a gun to begin with, then no one would be dead." And I reply with you couldn't be more wrong. It's the law abiding citizens like myself and some of my friends that obey the laws and follow the gun laws. The criminals don't care about the laws. They don't abide by them. That the last 4 major shootings in America: Movie theater in Aurora, CO; Mall in Oregon; Sikh temple in Wisconsin; and the school in Connecticut -- What do these places have in common? They were all "gun free" zones. Meaning that law-abiding citizens were legally unable to carry a firearm for their own protection. You can't tell me that this is a coincidence. Give a criminal, who is intent on killing people, a choice of two buildings filled with people; one building where the people are prohibited by law from carrying a legal firearm for protection, and one building where legal firearms are allowed… which one do you think he/she will pick? The one where they know the crowd won't return fire on them. So, tell me again why I should be restricted from buying a gun the legal way when its not me you should be worrying about, but the guys that don't follow the law.
Something of interest in this CT shooting case: The shooter, attempted to purchase a rifle a week before the tragedy in CT and was denied. Tell me how this is a failure of the US Gun Laws?
I decided to do some research on gun crimes and such. I think you will be surprised by the results.
The United States of America accounts for somewhere between 35 and 50 percent of all guns owned in the world (China, Russia and Afghanistan were not included in the stats because they were unavailable).
The United States of America ranks number 28 in the world with a firearm murder rate of 2.97 per 100,000 people (a total of 9,146 firearm related homicides). The top 3 countries? Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica.
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list)Want to know what country has one of the lowest firearm murder rates? Switzerland. It is interesting to note that Switzerland issues military firearms to all of its citizens when they turn 20 as a part of enrolling them in the militia. These firearms that are issued to the citizens are to be kept in their home. Hmm… Now, why could they have such a low rate of firearm murders when so many people own guns?
For the same year that the study above was conducted (2007), there were a total of 13.78 fatalities by motor vehicle accident per 100,000 people (41,059 deaths). This is more than 4 times as many deaths due to cars than firearms. (http://www.saferoads.org/federal/2004/TrafficFatalities1899-2003.pdf)
One further point… again, in 2007, there were 13,041 people killed in alcohol-impaired driving accidents. (http://www.edgarsnyder.com/drunk-driving/drunk-driving-statistics.html)
So, what does this mean? It means that you are more than 5 times as likely to be killed by a car or a drunk driver than by a firearm.
Furthermore, if someone does not have access to a firearm, but is intent on killing anyone, he will do so. China has very very strict gun laws and there, criminals do not use guns. They use knives. Most recently, a man at a Chineese school with a knife, injured 22 children and 1 adult. I guess China needs knife control now as well. *sarcasm*
BUT, you want to ban guns to prevent violent crimes like Newtown… OK! Everyone has the right to their own opinions, so let's look at other countries who have attempted to do away with guns and how that has worked: Australia. Australia made it almost impossible to own a firearm in 1996 (only about 5% of Australia owns a gun today). 5 years after Australia enacted this law, violent crimes have actually RISEN and percent of murders with a firearm reached an all-time high for Australia in 2006. Their violent crime rate rose 42.2% in 2006… with a strong ban on firearms! How can this be? The Australia Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research released these stats and knows that the gun ban did nothing for crimes. I'm not saying that owning guns reduces crime, but it is statistically evident that gun control does not do what the people intended for it to do.
(http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=17847)
Hopefully, you have stuck with me and now I can give my opinion as to how to our country can reduce violent crimes including the use of firearms. If you look at the recent incidents involving guns and innocent victims, all of them (and I am willing to bet that the Connecticut shooter will also show this) had issues with mental health. I am not saying that their actions were justified, but what I am saying is that there is a common denominator here and maybe the CAUSE should be investigated, not the symptom. In medicine, we are taught to treat the condition. What is causing your symptoms? When you have a bacterial infection, we don't treat you with something to help suppress the symptoms, we treat you with an antibiotic to get rid of the cause of your symptoms. What I am saying is that these people had a history of psychological problems that caused them to commit these crimes.
James Holmes walked into a Colorado movie theater and opened fire on innocent people wanting to watch a popular movie. It has since been understood that he had visited at least 3 mental health professionals prior to the massacre. Some people suggested that before the incident that he could be dangerous, but no one did anything.
Jacob Roberts ran into a mall food court and opened fire on those around him before turning the gun on himself. Many people around him say that in the days leading up to this incident that Roberts seemed "numb" and had sold all of his belongings and was going to move to Hawai'i after a recent break-up and quitting his job .
Wade Michael Page opened fire at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin before killing himself. Page was involuntarily discharged from the military in 1998 and was a member of a white supremacy hate group. He was described by friends as a "loner" who talked about an "impending racial holy war". He wouldn't make eye contact with neighbors when he rarely came in contact with them.
These 3 men had signs of distress, but people ignored it. My opinion is that ignorance of mental issues is a HUGE issue in America. No one wants to discuss mental illness and it is becoming politically incorrect to even use words related to these problems. We need education on mental illness and how to recognize people who are in trouble and showing signs of aggression or other behavior that could lead to someone "snapping" and leading to blood baths like Connecticut. I know of many people who have mental illnesses, some who treat it and can live normal lives, some who refuse to treat it, and even some who think they know what is best for them and stop treatment because they feel like they are normal again.
Another problem behind mental illnesses in America is the families of those affected. MANY families refuse to believe their loved one has a problem and take steps to help. "It's just incomprehensible to me that my son has a mental illness. The doctor is just wanting to make money." No one likes to hear that their loved one has a mental illness, but ignoring it is even more dangerous. Acknowledging a mental illness does not make you less of a person. It does not make you weird. Physiologically there are range of issues that can contribute to mental illnesses and can be treated by physicians with various methods of treatment.
The 3 men above and (I believe) the 20-yr old who murdered 26 people in Connecticut, had underlying conditions that, if treated properly and appropriately monitored by friends and family, could have prevented their actions and the loss of life in each of the cases. EDIT: It has been made public that the shooter did in fact have a mental illness, which reported by one of his neighbors was a form of autism. He was said to be a very intelligent individual that kept to himself, was shy and goth. A form of autism that coincides with high intelligence could be Asperger's Syndrome (NOTE: this is just my assumption). Asperger's Syndrome is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, alongside restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests.
I'm amazed at how we have completely ignored the mental health of these people and jumped directly to banning firearms to fix our problem. Relating this to my study of medicine, instead of treating the gout in a patients toe, someone just wants to cut it off so the patient won't feel pain. Why don't we treat the cause of gout? It seems like figuring out why these people are committing these heinous crimes and fixing that problem would be much more beneficial to society as a whole as opposed to cutting off an entire sporting industry in America.
For a personal look at someone who deals with a child who is highly gifted, but has a mental illness, I would point you to this blog: http://anarchistsoccermom.blogspot.com/2012/12/thinking-unthinkable.html
Finally, I saw this quote on a friends Facebook today and I find it very appropriate:
A wise man once said, "The problem is that there is evil in the hearts of men. When was the last time you saw laws stop evil? Evil, by its very nature, ignores laws. What we need are changed hearts. When all hearts are changed all evil will go away. Until then there will be massacres, wars, injustice of every sort. Any idea how to change hearts?"
