The Real Tragedy Behind The Newtown, Connecticut Tragedy
SEARCH BLOG: CRIME.
It was expected. President Obama will seek tougher gun laws because a gun was used to kill people. Of course, knives, forks, and spoons kill people, too. Sure, that's a little sardonic. But the reality is that the misuse of knives, forks and spoon account for ten times the annual deaths in the U.S. than the misuse of guns.
- Estimated annual deaths from obesity - 112,000.
- Annual homicide deaths by guns - 9,146 or 11,493 depending on source.
Regardless, the President and legions of his liberal friends are simply overlooking the obvious. Murders, especially mass murders, are the work of those who are pathologically incapable or unwilling to control their murderous instincts.
This is the contents of a Facebook exchange between me and my niece on Sunday night. Keep reading until you get to the end of the post where you will be quite surprised.
MY NIECE: A short personal essay on what it's like to be a mother of a mentally unstable child who also has violent episodes. i've heard stories from my mom too about dealing with her students who exhibit similar behavior...and how sometimes there is little that can be done until they have really hurt someone or themselves.
worry for her as well.
I am xxxxxxxxxx's Mother - The Blue Review thebluereview.org
ME: Site doesn't respond [may now that the initial number of site hits has subsided], but just a few observations. 60 years ago, a person with demonstrated mental problems would be put in an institution and given some variety of "treatment." The purpose was to remove the person from society where he/she could a potential threat to themselves or others.
This didn't sit well with those who felt "mental illness" [vaguely defined] was a disease [non-communicable, but dangerous] and should be treated as a disease... primarily by allowing the mentally ill to live "normal" lives while receiving "assistance" from ... somewhere? The reality is that most of these people either ended up on the streets or living with parents who were ill-equipped to manage them. But it made a lot of professionals feel better about themselves even though the "patients" were potentially far worse off and a real danger to those around them.
What had been a "throw them all in the institution" policy became a "let them all fend for themselves" reality. So, people like your mother have to deal with such children who are a threat to themselves and others, simply because it is good progressive policy despite being intentionally blind to the consequences.
Some people cannot be helped in a "normal" environment. That's not to say that is the case for all. But those with violent tendencies should be removed from society... even if they have not acted in a mass-murderer fashion... yet. There needs to be something other than an "all or nothing" policy about institutionalizing people. Here in Michigan, we closed down a large hospital sized facility for the mentally ill and they went... who knows?
After closing psychiatric hospitals, Michigan incarcerates mentally ill.
www.freep.com
MY NIECE: Uncle Bruce - that's definitely been a major problem resulting from the "de-institutionalization" of people suffering mental illness. The county needs to find some way to work with patients so that they get just the right help they need. It's not an uncomplicated problem and will take lots of work by many many people to solve this problem.
ME: As I said, the "enlightened" principle of "mainstreaming" those with mental issues has probably done more harm than good. That same principle has been extended into education so that your poor mother not only has to deal with children who are physically and mentally impaired, but also children who have severe emotional issues as well. They don't belong in the classroom and, as they get older, they will probably require some sort of institutional restriction... though it shouldn't be jail just to protect the "success" of mainstreaming.When it became "enlightened" to handle people with severe mental problems as "special needs who should be mainstreamed," and the psychiatric hospitals/mental wards were closed down with reckless abandon by those who really wanted to be "enlightened," the doors were literally opened to those who should have been humanely separated from the rest of society... for their good and ours. The Connecticut mass murderer of children was one such individual whose mother was forced to try to handle him and who ultimately became another victim of "enlightenment."
Due to deinstitutionalization in the 1960s and 1970s, there was less of a need for hospitals like Fairfield Hills [in Newtown, Connecticut]. With the high cost of running underused hospitals, state hospitals around the country shut their doors. In 1995, Gov. John Rowland closed Fairfield Hills and its sister hospital, Norwich State Hospital. All patients that remained were moved to Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown.[3]
The Town of Newtown rented out the first floor of Canaan House [a psychiatric facility] from the mid-1990s up until 2005; it was home to the town's Board of Education, Planning & Zoning, and Fire Marshall. The Reed Intermediate School is also located on the property. [source]The irony is just tragic.
Of course, it is much easier to blame guns... which is why I'm blaming knives, forks, and spoons.
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