Control [Supposedly] "Sane" People and Politicians, Not Just Guns or the Supposedly Mentally Ill

I hope this post makes you angry.....

.....but that you don't shoot anybody -- at least not anybody who's not affiliated with the NRA.

UPDATED on 3/3/18 to reflect the facts that:

1 -- It was learned that four (4) Broward Co. deputies -- not just one (1) -- "did nothing" during the 2/14/18 mass shooting at a school in Parkland, FL -- as 17 people were being murdered.

2 -- The Broward Co. Sheriff's office in general and school resource officer Scot Peterson in particular had been warned some 18 times about shooter Nikolas Cruz over the past decade (before he ever joined the JROTC that taught him to shoot -- at least two of those times being specific warnings that he might be planning to shoot up the school.

3 -- A 53-year old "favorite" school teacher who'd been recognized for his work and who'd been treated for at least two (2) mental health episodes fired a gun in an empty classroom in Dalton, GA.

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The October 1st, 2017 massacre on the Las Vegas Strip killed 58 people and wounded hundreds more. No one could figure out why a wealthy, retired, highly intelligent man who had no known religious or political ties would go ballistic all of a sudden. He was set for life. He could have lived well for the rest of his days. He was in what we might assume was a relatively secure relationship -- maybe not the best type of relationship, but one that wasn't in danger of ending anytime soon (especially when you consider that he'd just sent his girlfriend $100,000 while she was visiting family in Asia). I began to think that this situation was the perfect storm insomuch as it would bear out the difficult truths that I've wanted for so long to get people to see and discuss. It would be the situation that would move the nation away from the cycle of large-scale violence -- mass shooting, emotion, rightly blaming the NRA and politicians they've purchased, clamoring for solutions, political rhetoric, deafening silence, another mass shooting -- and into a phase of sustained energy, deep thought and real solutions. I was quite over-ambitious in the sense that I went so far as to imagine that, if the Las Vegas massacre could be used to bring all Americans to a place where we agree on the systemic flaws that led to this tragedy, we could also raise the caliber of our collective consciousness such that the nation as a whole would begin to move rapidly toward solutions for many long-standing problems and social ills. Those hopes were thoroughly dashed in the weeks that followed.

No worries. This is the U.S. of A. If one mass shooting, act of terror or other national tragedy (such as the election of 45) doesn't do enough to bring Americans together, there will come yet another atrocity not long hence and, with it, another opportunity to raise our collective consciousness. I'd say that the saddest truth here is that it takes tragedy to bring people together; but, while that seems to be the case with natural disasters, it has not proven to be the case with mass shootings. The saddest truth here is actually the fact that, from what I can tell, mass shootings do more to tear us apart (no pun intended) than they do to bring us together. After the initial acts of heroism and first response, we argue about the cause of and solution for the problem -- even as the next shooting is in the works. Irrespective of who anyone chooses to blame (most often without formulating anything that even comes close to a real solution), we're forced to realize that whatever has been done is too little and too late.

Four and a half months later we had yet another mass shooting on Valentine's Day (which doubled as Ash Wednesday) -- on a date that represents love and on a holy day that represents repentance and forgiveness. Whereas Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock (64) had not given any indication that he was on a path toward mass murder, Nikolas Cruz had shown several signs that he was going that way. His father died when he was three years old. (Over the years I've seen news about other boys whose fathers died when the boys were very young, resulting in violent tensions arising between the boys and their mothers as they reached their teens.) He was a "troubled" youth who'd been disciplined by the school on a number of occasions. The police had been called about him at least 18 times since he was nine years old -- two of those calls specifically mentioning the high probability that he'd shoot up the school. School resource officer Scot Peterson specifically had been warned about him. The FBI had been contacted at least twice about him. Other students had "joked" about him becoming a school shooter. Despite having been in trouble with the law since he was nine, he was allowed to take part in his school's JROTC which, in recent years, received a $10,000 donation from the NRA (and he had on his JROTC shirt during the mass shooting). The school had a firing range at which Mr. Cruz, as a member of JROTC, was taught to use guns --even after multiple disciplinary actions at the school. He was a good shot who could hit a target the size of a dime. Mr. Cruz was expelled from school in 2017. School staff and administrators might have figured it was over at that point. We now know otherwise. We now know that Nikolas Cruz remained angry for a year and returned to exact vengeance on unsuspecting people at the school that taught him to shoot with a gun that he'd purchased legally. Violence begat violence. I was left to wonder if the Parkland, FL incident was the perfect storm that would bear out the difficult truths that I've wanted for so long to get people to see and discuss -- if it would do for our collective consciousness what the Las Vegas massacre couldn't do.

In the days since the shooting, I've followed the new developments and had numerous Facebook conversations about them. Much to my dismay, there are seemingly and supposedly "sane" people who can't see beyond the "motivated reasoning" (a professional psychological phrase) that causes them to recognize only the facts that point toward what they choose to believe while they reject even the most sound logic that points in a different direction. People continue to hammer the NRA (which undoubtedly has a lot of blood on its hands), even though we know that they are motivated by the guns and gun rights that define their "business" (for lack of a better term). As guilty as they are, given the nature of what they do, ostracizing them seems to be a lost cause, a futile endeavor and a colossal waste of time. But people who want to believe they're making a difference continue to pummel the NRA nonetheless. They're the good ones here, though their cries seem to fall on deaf ears. The NRA itself and other staunch gun rights-advocates exhibit a much higher degree of motivated reasoning that ignores a much larger swath of evidence and yields much worse consequences. Taken together, we end up with a group of well-meaning gun-control advocates continually raising their voices at the gun-rights advocates who aren't listening -- all of this as the next mass shooter makes final preparations over the course of several months (having begun the process a year or more earlier in some cases). I'll posit here that mass shootings are mere symptoms of America's collective mental illness. Seriously. It's been said that "Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results". That's definitely one form of insanity, though I doubt it's the only one. I can think of a few more, having already named "motivated reasoning".

As a homeless advocate, I'm well aware of the fact that 25% of the homeless are said to be severely mentally ill. Howbeit, one-fourth of all Americans have been determined to be having some struggle with sanity. (So, consider your three closest friends. If they all seem to be OK, then consider yourself. You might be the crazy one.) Those statistics are actually at least 20 years old. I wouldn't be surprised to find that a full 40% of Americans are struggling with their sanity at this point (some recent stats putting the percentage of severely mentally homeless people that high). That said, it's safe to assume that 60% of Americans are "sane", relatively speaking -- and I do say that with a bit of reservation. After all, 63 million Americans (31.5% of the 200 million registered voters the country had in 2016) voted for Donald Trump who has proven himself to have some severe mental struggles. The lunatic is running the looney bin after having been placed in his position by a flawed voting system, the nearly one-third of voters whose insufficient logic led them to believe that he was right for the job and another 63 million people who thought that the best thing they could do was stay home on Election Day. America has a rash of irrational thinkers and nonchalant people, though neither mental condition has been determined to rise to the level of mental illness (as far as I know anyway). They're problems undeniably -- problems whose effects we'll have to live with at least until January 20th, 2021 (maybe longer) unless the Mueller investigation leads to an impeachment. America collectively has a mental problem, though the full diagnosis is still forthcoming. So, t's no surprise that we've had more than 200 school shootings since the Columbine massacre of 1999 or that almost 200 school shooting were averted in the week that followed the Parkland massacre. All things considered, the nation has yielded some 40,000 homicidal teens in the last 19 years; and, that's probably a gross underestimate which doesn't even begin to account for the adults with similar tendencies. These numbers should lead anyone to wonder both why it is that so many people are so willing to kill so many and why it is that our elected leaders have not been able to get a handle on the problem for so long. If these numbers don't raise these questions in your mind, either you're crazy or you at least think you have the answers. I hope it's the latter. If so, please share your insights with others and thereby make a positive contribution to the collective consciousness.

I personally don't claim to have the full set of answers, though I'm doing my part to keep the conversation going. I do know this much: that the full set of answers lies somewhere within a much different way of thinking than Americans tend to exhibit. Americans are so caught up on what they want to believe that they refuse to acknowledge when their interests and habits are the cause of a major problem -- thus the NRA. Americans are so attached to their right to choose a president that they fail to admit when their choice was a bad one -- the formerly-possible benefits and ravages of an HRC presidency notwithstanding. Americans are so swift to get in their emotions and so devoid of deep thought or rationale that many people fail to realize that they are going through the same ineffectual cycle that they went through after the last mass shooting. Americans are so individualistic that they can't seem to come together around a national crisis that could have been prevented and to see it all the way through to its permanent resolution. Americans are so ignorant that they get upset with any of the few people like myself who point these things out.

America has at least one more professionally-recognized mental condition: cognitive dissonance. "Cognitive dissonance" is the part of American state of mind wherein citizens have failed to reconcile their contradictory thoughts. They love freedom but allow their shallow and nearly non-existent political views to be constrained by the McCarthy-ism with which they were imbued as school children. Many register to vote but fail to use that right. They complain about the official for whom they voted but fail to figure out what is was about their decision at the ballot box that caused them to choose a candidate that eventually disappointed them. Then they demand solutions from an elected official who has been proven to be unfit for office. Conservatives ignorantly see their president who lived like a heathen for some 70 years as a God-send. (FYI, the God of Necessary Evils has raised up kings and other leaders to do evil; so, they might have -- somewhat inadvertently -- guessed right on that much.) A full 2,000 years after Christ walked the Earth many of these same churchgoers can't figure out that God and Christ are two distinct beings -- the very basis of salvation lying therein. If positions held by the late Billy Graham are any indication, Christians couldn't determine whether or not it was right to bomb the dikes and kill a million Vietnamese -- an atrocity that fortunately never occurred (thanks to Nixon). We're still having the debate about abortion (which was legalized in 1973) and gay rights (a fight that began in 1967) -- Christians and non-Christians being divided within their respective groupings. The collective church can't decide for once and for all whether or not it's right for women to preach. Despite the number of preachers that have led movements in this country, we've yet to develop a unified front; but, they all are speaking in the name of Jesus Christ who told us that a kingdom divided against itself (inter-personally OR intra-personally)  cannot stand. The church which has Christ as its head has divided into enough legs to make a millipede envious. And yet, with all of this division, indecision and cognitive dissonance among adults, we expect our teens to have a sense of direction in their minds and in their lives. Go figure.

I really hoped in October 2017 that the available logic as to why Stephen Paddock went on the rampage would point to him having been someone who actually did have some strong views and who had made various attempts to express those views to others who, due to their motivated reasoning, just wouldn't listen. I hoped that a logic would be borne out that would give me the space to say, "See, people, this is what happens when you are so caught up on what you want to believe that you ignore the overwhelming evidence which points in a different direction!!!". I had hoped to use this evidence as the impetus with which to force some better thinking onto people both in my immediate surroundings and on social media. I hoped to be able to make the case that Mr. Paddock had developed a state of mind that didn't trace back to anything congenital and that it was the result of how he was treated for many years. I hoped we'd find irrefutable proof that it was some of the seemingly innocent behaviors of humankind that got him there. So, I speculated that maybe it was people refusing to hear thoughts that differ from their own beliefs which created this "monster". I went so far as to figure that I'd be able to use this logic to build the case for why our governments can't end homelessness -- because they refuse to hear the thoughts of the homeless and to then take action based on what the homeless say they need in order to exit homelessness. However, the available evidence didn't fully bear out such a conclusion; and, because I don't suffer from (or cause others to suffer because of) any measure of motivated reasoning, I embraced the realization that Las Vegas wasn't the mass shooting that would usher in an American enlightenment. (I've still not learned of him having had any congenital mental disorder, but have yet to learn what thinking caused him to go postal.) It seems that the energy of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students might last up to and through the next mass shooting (a few months hence) and that the energy might be sustained for the better part of a year -- yea, even until real solutions are realized. Let's hope.....that I'm not just being over-ambitious again.

Since 17 people were killed in Parkland, Florida, the debate about gun control has resurfaced but with a markedly different twist. We learned that Sheriff Deputy/ School Resource Officer Scot Peterson stood outside of the school and "did nothing" -- having arrived two minutes into the six- or seven-minute shooting spree. He was placed on unpaid suspension but immediately resigned. It was later revealed that three other deputies arrived during the shooting but remained outside of the school with guns drawn. It has been said that all four deputies had taken up "tactical positions"; but, I think they were scared and derelict in their duties. In any instance, having good people with guns on the scene didn't do anything to avert or end the tragedy. It was the shooter himself who dropped the gun, removed his protective gear and joined the fleeing students in an apparent effort to blend in. This set of truths flies in the face of the NRA's claim that "the only thing that can stop bad guys with guns is good guys with guns".

Donald Trump has suggested that one-fifth of all teachers in the country be trained to confront an active shooter and then armed with pistols (which are no match for assault rifles). Who knows??? Maybe some teacher at the next school to experience a shooting will succeed at pegging the assailant in the back and thereby bringing the carnage to an abrupt halt. (Maybe the JROTC instructors will train the other teachers to be the good shots that Nikolas Cruz is.) Maybe the armed teachers will just get petrified or prove to be such poor shots that they are killed and their guns are then used by the assailant to kill even more people. Maybe a group of unruly students will plan a surprise attack on an armed teacher, wrest the gun from her and use it to wreak havoc on the class. There are a few different possibilities as to how whatever new policy the Trump administration conjures up might pan out. Much to my dismay, none of the policies that are being considered include any effort to arrest the development of any of our teens into homicidal maniacs. All of the ideas are reactionary -- in keeping with Republican norms.

It only took two weeks to turn the idea of arming teachers on its head -- whether or not Trump admits it. On February 28th a high school teacher in Dalton, Georgia fired a single shot in an empty classroom. He was a likable guy and the favorite teacher of some students. He'd been recognized for his good work as a teacher. He'd also been treated for at least three psychotic episodes. He'd had his rifles taken away by police after setting the family vehicle ablaze in 2016. But he still owned a pistol; and, he continued to teach. Not only did people ignore the many indications that a teen was set to go on a rampage at a school; but, they also missed the indications that a teacher was becoming more dangerous. Fortunately, the teacher didn't shoot anyone. However, the teacher taught us that even the educators whom 45 and the NRA want to arm for safety's sake can themselves be threats. If you're keeping up, then you've ascertained by this point that even the most trusted people in our society can let us down. A 19-year old former student killed 17 people. Four cops essentially "did nothing" to end the carnage. A teacher discharged a weapon that he, for more reasons than one, shouldn't have had at the time. Angry. Scared. Crazy. Go figure.

In addition to the idea of arming teachers, there is the idea of improving mental health services for the mentally ill and making it harder for them to acquire guns...legally (which wouldn't have prevented Adam Lanza from killing his mother, 20 first-graders and six educators with his mother's gun). No one has mused publicly about how an innocent first-grader becomes a homicidal teen. No one seems to want to consider what activities that they've become so accustomed to might actually be the cause of the problem. Americans laud single mothers and choose not to visit the issue of what stresses lacking a man in the house places on boys -- whether their fathers died or abandoned the family. It doesn't matter to them how many teenage sons kill their mothers; because, Americans have decided that they don't want to attempt to tease out the shortcomings and inabilities of single mothers who are raising boys. And God forbid that we even consider how 15 years of teasing Seung Hui Cho about his voice might have caused him to kill 32 people at Virginia Tech or how students ignoring one of their own might make him homicidal. If anyone senses that you might be building the case for one or more of their beloved activities being the cause of a rampage, they're likely to bring the conversation to an abrupt end. Motivated reasoning.

Americans love to blame violent or otherwise unacceptable behavior on mental illness, despite the fact that most of the 80 million to 128 million mentally ill Americans don't go on rampages. It's that low-hanging fruit -- that handy cop-out. People don't need to think very much to arrive at that "conclusion". America has developed an addiction to the "mental illness" cop-out -- so much so that some governments now classify addiction as a mental illness (now that many Caucasians are becoming addicts -- after having imprisoned many Blacks for long periods of time for addiction for many years). Make no mistake: If someone is truly mentally ill, then they should be diagnosed as such and treated accordingly. But the system has gone crazy with the idea. In Washington, DC many homeless service providers encourage the homeless to claim that they are mentally ill. Sometimes it's proven that the homeless person who was so advised actually is not mentally ill. (I suspect that this ill-advice is given to create the visage among low-income workers that the city is only connecting the disabled homeless to affordable housing, not those who are merely low-income workers, and to give the city's homeless service contractors job security. It's a racket.) The city's  tiered court system also seems to want to label as many Black American men as possible as mentally ill. (I'm sure that some are just poorly educated in the city's well-documented problem-plagued education system -- not mentally ill.) It stands to reason that some of Washington, DC's high school students are playing hooky for one-third of the school year so as to reduce the chances that they'll be killed in school shootings that our governments obviously can't prevent. Maybe the would-be victims AND the would-be shooters are averting a carnage in the nation's capital by playing hooky. At least they're alive. That said, mental health services are quickly becoming the catch-all for the homeless as well as violent and non-violent criminals. Mental health providers, meanwhile, are expanding their services. Isn't it neat how it all comes together???

At the end of the day, it seems that we don't need to exponentially increase gun control -- at least not beyond raising the age for all gun ownership and military service to 21 -- or to greatly increase mental health services. (Maybe we should also put high school students who get expelled for violence on a watch list with the local police until they're 21.) We need to control supposedly sane people -- namely and especially our elected officials. In November 2018 we need to fire the politicians who have been bought by the NRA. We need to increase our political consciousness and to visit our elected officials frequently -- not just vote them in and give them run of the house. We need to follow the lead of the throngs of high school students who've come out of the woodwork to speak truth to power. And we need to follow these "leaders of tomorrow" who've become the "leaders of today" all the way to the set of solutions that should have prevented the Parkland, Florida massacre in the first place. America needs to overcome is collective mental illness by receiving treatment from these "junior" psychologists - along with their freshmen, sophomore and senior counterparts.