Justice • .

Guns and Mental Illness: 6 Evil Practices by Which We Are Killing Our Kids ◦

August 9, 2023
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5 min read

We hear repeatedly that the problem is not guns, it is mental illness. “Guns don’t kill people – people kill people”. That’s a cop-out. Of course people kill people, always have. BUT …

Guns and mental illness feed on each other. Such violence – rage, hate, paranoia, self-contempt or whatever – how could it not involve at least temporary mental illness?Guns and mental illness

But these sick acts are VASTLY MORE DESTRUCTIVE BECAUSE OF the easy availability of weapons of maximum killing power, and the consequent apparent faddishness of such acts.

6 EVIL PRACTICES by which WE ARE KILLING OUR KIDS

IS THIS WHAT WE REALLY WANT?

  1. If we keep making such maximally efficient citizen-killing technology freely available to ANYone – does that actually serve any public good?
  2. True, it very powerfully strengthens the NRA as a political power. Is strengthening this violent and corrupting political power center a major public good?
  3. It increases the great profits of the gun manufacturing and sales systems. Is increasing their profit at the cost of innocent, unsuspecting American children a major public good?
  4. It for some reason comforts the NRA Christians and NRA Republicans. Is their anti-social comfort and pride a major public good?
  5. It deludes some into thinking they are going to resist (with rifles!) military or police teams, personnel carriers, drones, rockets, planes, tanks, etc.  Is that delusion a major public good?
  6. Each massacre gives training-by-example to other potential murderers. They get “better” by watching others; their effectiveness increases – so any given one of them can
    • a) kill more of us per event, and
    • b) kill more of us more quickly in each event.
    • Is this public education-in-murder, this enhancement of massacre-skill-levels, somehow to be seen as a major public good?

Is that what we want?

It deludes some into thinking they are going to resist (with rifles!) military or police teams, personnel carriers, drones, rockets, planes, tanks, etc.

MAYBE THE UNDERLYING PROBLEM IS MENTAL ILLNESS

If so, then the enabling problem is putting maximum killing technology in the hands of dangerously unstable people.

WHAT DID WE EXPECT WOULD HAPPEN??

We  know that some mental illnesses are not going to be dangerous to other people.

But some are. And sometimes you just can’t tell. WHY put maximum killing power in the hands of those who clearly do have dangerous mental illnesses – or records of violence and abuse?

Seriously. Why? Perhaps we – that is, our government leaders – are the ones with mental illness. (e.g. Nebraska State Senate?)

Weapons designed for war, for assault in warfare settings, are being flooded into American civilian society. Dangerous men get them (almost inevitably white Christian males) – men unstable enough to use them for their intended warlike purposes – against us, most often against our kids! We should not be making maximum killing technology freely available to the whole populace. Obviously!

Are your kids next, or your grandkids, neighbor kids? Are you next? Great power to kill large numbers of humans in very short order – THAT’s what we deliberately put in the hands of unstable and very dangerous individuals.

The distinguishing problem with these massacres is not mental illness.  The distinguishing problem is that we have so freely available in this country such powerful killing technology.
Yet certain of our leaders act again and again deliberately to enable precisely such persons to continue freely and legally to get such weapons.

Is this what we want?

The PURPOSE of smokescreens is to keep us from seeing and then dealing with a problem. “It’s a mental health problem” is a smokescreen. We always have mental illness. (Let’s not cut back support for those problems!) But the distinguishing problem with these massacres IS NOT MENTAL ILLNESS.  The distinguishing problem is that we have so freely available in this country such powerful killing technology.

WE REGULATE MUCH ELSE THAT’S A PUBLIC DANGER. WHY NOT GUNS-AND-MENTAL-ILLNESS?guns and mental illness

We regulate things like cars, drivers’ licenses, traffic.  Pharmaceuticals.  How we handle money and financial reporting.  Preventing people under indictment from threatening their prosecutors or people who might testify against them. We have a number of indispensable protections built into our legal and social structures. Why not THIS issue that’s killing our kids? Why?

IF

a) the AR-15 and other high-efficiency human-killing machines were illegal, or much more carefully regulated,
b) AND honest efforts were made to enforce those laws and regulations,

THEN

c) it certainly would NOT stop everyone.
d) BUT it could honestly be expected to STOP A LOT of men similar to those who have not to this point been stopped. That’s just how these things work.

That WOULD BE a major public good.The Public Good

Why won’t we do that? After all, we’re literally killing ourselves.

Let’s act like grownups and interfere with this process of self-destruction of American lives, of American freedom, of America’s delight in its children and our future in them.
Let’s talk about it, allow others to talk about it, ask our legislators to talk about it, INSIST that they talk about it.

Saying that “It’s a mental health problem” is a smokescreen.

The problem is having such powerful killing technology flooding our nation.

Is this what we want?
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See also:

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Questions for us:

1. Near the beginning of this article is the question “Is this really what we want?” What do you see on that list that might actually be a social good, something we really do or should want?
2. To what extent, would you say, is this author right in saying “the distinguishing problem with these massacres is not mental illness”?

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