The Jackhole of Newtown, CT, Part One

By now, everyone should know of the murderous rampage of the Jackhole of Newtown.[1]

I have read comments elsewhere about how this is unique to the U.S. and to this time. It has happened elsewhere[2] and mass killings in schools have been done with other types weaponry.[3] When you look into it, the incidence of assholes going into schools and killing children is depressingly common.

One thing that gripes me immensely is the use of false logic rooted in religion, of the "we didn't have these shootings when we had prayer in schools."[4] The Supreme Court decision about that was in 1963. A short list of things that didn't exist in 1963 would include widespread color TV programming, touch-tone telephones, HBO, portable telephones (let alone cell phones), shoulder harnesses in cars (seat belts existed, but were uncommon), personal computers, ATMs, Japanese luxury cars, gender-neutral help-wanted advertising, "renting a movie, the Internet... need I go on?

I want to make two observations, but due to the anticipated length of what I plan to write, I will do it in two posts. (Okay, there is a third part.)

The first observation is on how this nation treats mental illness. Decades ago, if a person was diagnosed with a mental illness, the "treatment" was to put them in a state-run "mental hospital", often for life.[5] For a lot of those patients, they were simply warehoused, out of society's sight and mind. The horrors that went on in some of those places were well documented.

That all began to change in the 1970s, as the state hospitals began to close. The concept then was to replace those hospitals with community based residential treatment programs. That rarely happened. First off, state legislatures, who were happy to be able to stop paying to run those old mental hospitals, were not willing to pay to start up a new system of treatment. Second, on the few times that there was a plan to start a residential-based treatment facility, nimbyism usually killed the plan.

People who needed mental health services were dumped onto their families. Private medial insurance has historically been very stingy when it comes to paying for mental health treatment. The insurance companies prefer to pay for drugs than therapy, which is akin to treating bone fractures with aspirin. If that didn't help and if the family was unable to pay for treatment or care for the person who was ill, they ended up on the streets and, too often, in prison.[6]

One of the reasons why people might not report a disturbed friend, family member or co-worker to the authorities is the use of jails and prisons as de facto mental treatment facilities. Everybody knows that nobody is going to get better as a result of being tossed into the county jail. Even if the cops take that person to a psychiatric hospital, they're going to be probably discharged with a handful of prescription meds and the chances are that having that on their record will fuck them up when it comes to most careers, other than fast-food service.

I think it is fair to say that nobody in their right frame of mind is going to go to a school and kill a busload of first-graders. Outlawing the possession of firearms by mentally ill people seems to be as effective as permanent revocation of driver's licenses for repeat DUI offenders. We need, as a nation, to get serious about helping those with mental health issues. Until we do, blaming guns for school killings is akin to blaming tools for shoddy construction.
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[1] I never dignify these kinds of skells by referring to them by their proper names.
[2] Britain, Russia, Norway, Germany, Finland, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Japan and China, among others.
[3] Explosives, a flamethrower, a car, gasoline and knives.
[4] Those who say that "this didn't happen when religion was in schools" are full of shit.
[5] Those often so-called mental illnesses could include being GLBT. Or, in some cases, being a protestor.
[6] So the state warehousing function shifted from the department of health to the department of corrections.