Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

why are you guys arguing about mental illness/treatment. guns are the problem.

― Οὖτις

because this is a thread on the internet.

if we want to really avoid extraneous/superfluous discussion then we should just lock this thread because these massacres happen because of guns, but the majority of americans are against gun control, and in fact that majority is larger than it was pre-columbine, and this is going to keep happening for the rest of our lives.

but the majority of americans are against gun control

depends what you mean by gun control

also acting like the issue is decided cedes victory to the NRA, so I would say don't do it

repeal the 2nd Amendment everybody! Donate to groups with this as their goal.

that's a great long-term goal. in the short-term, fund metal health, because it's glaringly, unbelievably obvious that people who shoot a bunch of people in public are mentally ill

mental health, even

Why would you refer someone to a therapist if it wasn't in their almighty health insurance.

I grant that psychiatric nurses are experts on life in the ghetto. Real economic justice advocates, those people. Especially when they can't name the symptoms of grief, as the one I talked to couldn't distinguish between exogenous and endogenous depression.

Certainly not talking out of my ass when it comes to navigating the health care system.

Enjoy your cushy health insurance.

...

Also, if they are mentally ill, exactly how ought those brilliant social activists in psychiatry supposed to treat them?

I'm sure incipient gunmen have really good health insurance.

can this convo please go to another thread

ffs

Enjoy your cushy health insurance.

I pay a third of my household's monthly income for health insurance but pay mental health out of pocket, so go fuck yourself

you know literally nothing, hold your tongue

I M Losted, it sounds like you've done some great research. did you publish it anywhere?

you know literally nothing, hold your tongue

this is some supreme cold phrasing

I thank you

Why would I hurt people in my community by publishing about our collective trauma? I was trying to get badly needed counseling services, not broadcast our community's travails to an unconcerned professional community.

I think publications like Mother Jones have done good work in health care in low-income communities, not that too many people care.

Research was for a potential lawsuit, not for publication.

I M Losted isn't a troll exactly but uh this is p par for the course ime

xp

stop responding to them ffs

h**p://gawker.com/this-is-a-good-newspaper-front-page-1726946476

lol @ this bullshit (CW: contains images from the shooter's video)

btw, a little late now, but i also read and found moving that FB post Eazy shared upthread about the reaction to the video. and to me, what made so resonant was how the author dispensed with the usual haughty tone so common among purveyors of that particular POV -- and recognized as valid people's reactions, empathized, and then attempted to place the issue in its proper context. it's an attitude people on "our" side, myself included, could learn from

xpost everything about that is terrible.

they're really going hard at cornering "smug mic-drop tone"

From the other thread:

yeah our culture is not getting more violent

Maybe this is similar to the relative stagnation of car sales? Like, it's less that we are driving less and more that we just can't drive more? Maybe we hit maximum violence and have been leveling off? Because for getting less violent, we still are crazy violent.

And I feel that it's fair to say that, as the US becomes less violent overall, violence in America is becoming more incoherent and irrational. It's not just domestic violence or drug violence or gang violence or violence because of theft or what have you anymore. Increasingly (seemingly), it's violence with no discernable cause beyond mental illness + easy access to weapons.

one does not argue about health with a man named San Te

I'd like to see the trend for the death rate for African-Americans, particularly if it takes into account deaths at the hands of authority figures, before agreeing that we live in safer times.

I think that's key. The rate of violent crimes may have dropped, but do people feel safer?

one does not argue about health with a man named San Te

― rip van wanko, Friday, August 28, 2015 5:31 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

da fuq?

I'd like to see the trend for the death rate for African-Americans, particularly if it takes into account deaths at the hands of authority figures, before agreeing that we live in safer times.

Serious question, crudely phrased: What if it turns out that "black person killed by cops" is this year's "child bitten by pit bull"?

I don't think the statistics will be radically different this year. There's just a much brighter light being shone on the problem at the moment.

I don't think the statistics will be radically different this year. There's just a much brighter light being shone on the problem at the moment.

That's kinda my feeling, too. And I wonder what's going to happen once the media turns the light off again.

So glad I don't work in HR:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/28/us/virginia-shooting-spotlights-riddle-of-workplace-safety.html

It's not really just the media who arbitrarily chose to focus on police brutality this year. This has been a brave and determined effort by mainly black people of Ferguson, Baltimore, Cleveland, etc, to say enough is enough and take to the street and demonstrate. They've been hit with water cannons, tear gas and truckloads of bullshit arrests. And then smart and brave #BlackLivesMatter activists har worked determinedly to spread the word whenever something new has happened.

Even worse than that (xpost nytimes piece): employers often settle out of court with irate employees, and confidentiality is one of the conditions, so an unstable employee can keep moving along, getting hired and fired and hired again. In some states, arrests can't be considered in hiring (ditto the police report re this ex-TV reporter's removal from station premises); mentally disabled are a protected class; some other details I find harder to believe---all according to attorneys this morning on CNN's "The Legal View With Ashleigh B." (not linking because having trouble w CNN site at moment).

VA. gun laws weakened since VTech:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/after-va-tech-a-long-struggle-over-gun-laws/2014/02/11/21e899d0-8e86-11e3-b227-12a45d109e03_story.html

Thought of that while reading about the slain TV reporter's father vowing to reform gun laws (the father of a Virginia Tech survivor is an activist now, and this is the environment he has to navigate)

Broad and deep support for increased gun control: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/08/29/how-americans-actually-feel-about-stronger-gun-laws/

oh, crap, here we go with the "laws to prevent mentally ill from buying guns" again. the black lives matter movement and the events of the last couple of years have convinced me that we need to take serious and drastic action on the firearm situation in the us, but preventing the mentally ill from buying guns is the exact wrong thing to do. mental illness is already stigmatized enough in the us, and a law of this nature would be far more likely to have the effect of dissuading people who need help from seeking it than it would be to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. you want to see how something like this works in action, look at the us military, where you get discharged if you require treatment for mental illness. oh, sure, amphetamines are all well and good, but god forbid we should have one of our brave men and women in uniform on prozac. it's an utterly absurd policy, particularly when you take into account that war is insane and will make you insane. i'm as mad about all this as anybody, but that's no excuse for passing stupid laws.

Speaking as someone who is mentally ill... DON'T GIVE ME A FUCKING GUN, YOU IDIOTS.

(NB I am also of the persuasion "don't give anybody a fucking gun, you idiots")

What she said

Does feel like it is brushing the problem under the carpet though. Preventing the mentally ill from buying guns might stop them shooting people, but of all the mass shootings that have happened this year (one a day by some counts), and the non mass shootings, and the accidental shootings, how many would that have prevented? Maybe 'some' is better than none and maybe symptomatic treatment is the only thing possible at the moment. But it's not addressing the root causes.

The country was founded on using guns to systematically wipe out thousands of native communities, something that has long been enshrined in national myth as Manifest Destiny, the root causes are pretty deep.

Even if the mental health issue is being used by NRA types to derail the conversation, it's pretty clear that US gun/military/state violence culture is and always has been akin to someone with serious issues. I mean "War on terror"? What would you think if someone you interact with on a daily basis told you they were at constantly war with fear?

the "prevent the mentally ill from buying guns" dodge is fucking shameless because mental health funding in this country & at the state level in most places is the first goddamn thing under the knife every time a budget comes up, which means that the people being prevented from buying guns will only be the people who've been able to get services - fewer and fewer every year. it also stigmatizes mental illness in a really gross "you're the problem!" way. if the solution being proposed were "fully fund mental health and make services available to everyone and work toward public destigmatization of mental illness," that would actually be a righteous response imo, but that's not what this kinda thing is about w/the NRA at all. it's "the problem isn't guns it's....the big bad crazies!" which is fuckin bullshit.

Broad and deep support for increased gun control: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/08/29/how-americans-actually-feel-about-stronger-gun-laws/

― Οὖτις, Saturday, August 29, 2015 8:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

unfortunately public opinion has little power over what ultimately matters -- gun ownership -- which has been enshrined as a constitutional right by the Supreme Court. i'm pretty skeptical that the half-measures that can legally be taken can meaningfully reduce gun-related deaths, and equally as skeptical that the congress will move to do anything in the next decade or so anyway

xxp http://www.buyticketslastminute.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Jerry-Seinfeld-Tickets.jpeg

I generally don't have any Facebook friends prone to posting anything bonkers or offensive. But I do have one friend raised in rural Maine who hunts several times a year with his father, mostly turkey or overpopulated deer. He's a reasonable person, if obviously still pro gun. But he is more lax with his online friends, I guess, because every once in a while a kook posts to his Facebook page, so I see them. The other day someone posted a long, I'm sure to him reasonable defense of guns, basically blaming everything but the weapon itself for shootings (a la, "guns don't kill people...", etc). But literally two posts earlier was his first response to the subject (iirc about the Australian gun experiment). His response began " If someone came and took my guns I would shoot them in the face."

Fuck that guy and anything else that comes out of his mouth. He and people like him are the problem. Some of them are mentally ill. Many of them just like to shoot and kill things. The former can ideally be addressed through medication and treatment. There is no treatment for the latter.

if someone came and took my drum, I would drum it all night long

Thinking way back to social studies in school and I remember the 2nd Amendment being more or less taught to be the NRA-friendly interpretation. Perhaps this is why the right is so vigilant about liberal takeover of the educational system, they want to make it SEEM that way, when in reality it is kind of the opposite.

I agree k3vin, just refuting the suggestion upthread that there is not widespread support for gun control measures.

Xp

"Even if the mental health issue is being used by NRA types to derail the conversation, it's pretty clear that US gun/military/state violence culture is and always has been akin to someone with serious issues. I mean "War on terror"? What would you think if someone you interact with on a daily basis told you they were at constantly war with fear?"

something along the lines of "i can relate". i mean, shit, let's be honest, the first american war on terror was started by franklin roosevelt, who later made "freedom from fear" one of the key tenets of his "four freedoms".

the idea that we can't and shouldn't do something about something enshrined as a "right" by the supreme court is pure applesauce. i would advise the collective "you" to look at the state of privacy, and specifically of abortion, in america today to get a better sense of exactly to what extent supreme court decrees _matter_.

reports of active shooter on MIT campus right now