Maybe Now....
Following shooting after shooting in our country, going way back before Columbine in 1999 to Moses Lake, Washington; Pearl, Mississippi; Jonesboro, Arkansas to name just three, the voice of a bully has rung out, lecturing, threatening, that we dare not blame the weapon for the act and we dare not attempt to take any guns out of the hands of American citizens. Our very “freedom” hangs in the balance. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. God, guns and guts made America Great. Cute, ignorant talking points, backed by what many consider the most powerful lobby in Washington: The National Rifle Association.
Another shooting, another outcry, another silence.
I have long wondered who has to get killed to break this spell. Over this past weekend, my question was answered. Until now the victims simply haven’t yet been numerous and young enough. Well, no more. Twenty seven families have to live with crushing, endless heartache for the rest of us to turn meaningless conversation to action. Maybe.
On CNN I hear that seventy percent of NRA members believe in stronger gun control; believe that assault weapons aren’t part of the guns that make America great. Many are hunters who may keep one hand gun for protection. Their kids take gun safety courses and are taught proper respect for a weapon that, mishandled, kills whatever it’s pointed at.
But they pay their dues to an organization led by hard core zealots, who believe the gold standard for “freedom” in this country is the right to own as deadly and as many guns as one wishes. They have aided and abetted a literal flood of war guns into our midst, and now bellow to be permitted to possess astonishing firepower to protect themselves from those who would use those war guns for ill. Create a need, then fill it: the American way.
At the same time we’re finally hearing a call for stricter gun laws, we’re hearing a similar call for better mental health diagnostics and service. Tell you what, folks, if we’re looking for venues in which to heal our nation’s ills, we have come upon two fertile gardens. If there’s public policy in need of greater repair than our stance on guns, it’s our stance on mental health services. For the past thirty years I have been chairperson for the original Child Protection Team in Spokane, Washington and for nearly twenty of those years I worked with a team of other therapists dealing with families mired in child abuse and neglect issues, helping kids relegated to foster care come back home to parents learning new ways to parent and new ways to manage their dysfunctional histories and personalities. Four nights a week, three hours per night we worked individually and in groups with kids and adults to help wire together relatively safe family units. We worked shoulder to shoulder with social workers, assistant attorneys general, public defenders and members of said child protection team. A sixty percent success rate was considered heroic. My expertise in those days was considered to be with adolescents and young parents – particularly males – and I can tell you there are a lot more young men out there with the rage and mental incapacity to act heinously, than you want to imagine. Most never come in contact with mental health services. Luckily, most don’t kill.
What we had back then is gone. If I were to leave the mental health/social services field tomorrow I would be leaving it in worse condition than I found it in 1981. When national and state governments start tightening the belt, they tighten it directly around the neck of social and psychological services. Problems we once were allowed six months minimum to address, we are now allowed six sessions.
I believe this will take at least an entire generation to fix, if we start today. We won’t, we like to talk. But when we do get started we must commit to the long haul; it can’t flip over with each change in state or federal political administration. It has to be part of our public will. There was a time when each of those shooters was a little boy, probably a little boy who would have broken our hearts had we known what was going on inside. Some combination of experience and chemistry and culture turned him into a monster.
We need to find those little boys while they still are little boys. Meanwhile, we need to make sure they have no access to weapons that can reduce our communities to unimaginable sorrow.
Another shooting, another outcry, another silence.
I have long wondered who has to get killed to break this spell. Over this past weekend, my question was answered. Until now the victims simply haven’t yet been numerous and young enough. Well, no more. Twenty seven families have to live with crushing, endless heartache for the rest of us to turn meaningless conversation to action. Maybe.
On CNN I hear that seventy percent of NRA members believe in stronger gun control; believe that assault weapons aren’t part of the guns that make America great. Many are hunters who may keep one hand gun for protection. Their kids take gun safety courses and are taught proper respect for a weapon that, mishandled, kills whatever it’s pointed at.
But they pay their dues to an organization led by hard core zealots, who believe the gold standard for “freedom” in this country is the right to own as deadly and as many guns as one wishes. They have aided and abetted a literal flood of war guns into our midst, and now bellow to be permitted to possess astonishing firepower to protect themselves from those who would use those war guns for ill. Create a need, then fill it: the American way.
At the same time we’re finally hearing a call for stricter gun laws, we’re hearing a similar call for better mental health diagnostics and service. Tell you what, folks, if we’re looking for venues in which to heal our nation’s ills, we have come upon two fertile gardens. If there’s public policy in need of greater repair than our stance on guns, it’s our stance on mental health services. For the past thirty years I have been chairperson for the original Child Protection Team in Spokane, Washington and for nearly twenty of those years I worked with a team of other therapists dealing with families mired in child abuse and neglect issues, helping kids relegated to foster care come back home to parents learning new ways to parent and new ways to manage their dysfunctional histories and personalities. Four nights a week, three hours per night we worked individually and in groups with kids and adults to help wire together relatively safe family units. We worked shoulder to shoulder with social workers, assistant attorneys general, public defenders and members of said child protection team. A sixty percent success rate was considered heroic. My expertise in those days was considered to be with adolescents and young parents – particularly males – and I can tell you there are a lot more young men out there with the rage and mental incapacity to act heinously, than you want to imagine. Most never come in contact with mental health services. Luckily, most don’t kill.
What we had back then is gone. If I were to leave the mental health/social services field tomorrow I would be leaving it in worse condition than I found it in 1981. When national and state governments start tightening the belt, they tighten it directly around the neck of social and psychological services. Problems we once were allowed six months minimum to address, we are now allowed six sessions.
I believe this will take at least an entire generation to fix, if we start today. We won’t, we like to talk. But when we do get started we must commit to the long haul; it can’t flip over with each change in state or federal political administration. It has to be part of our public will. There was a time when each of those shooters was a little boy, probably a little boy who would have broken our hearts had we known what was going on inside. Some combination of experience and chemistry and culture turned him into a monster.
We need to find those little boys while they still are little boys. Meanwhile, we need to make sure they have no access to weapons that can reduce our communities to unimaginable sorrow.
