The Mental Health System Can not Stop Mass Shooters
The author started by telling a story when the police brought that 21-year-old man into the crisis unit where I work as an emergency psychiatrist. His parents had called the police after seeing postings on his Facebook page that praised the Columbine shooters, referred to imminent death and destruction at his community college and promised his own “Day of Retribution.” His brother reported to the police that he had recently purchased a gun.
When the author interviewed the painted, he denied all of this. He said he has no mental issue and no problems at all. He said that he does not need any type of treatment and he is fine.
In each mass shooting there will be debate about what causes this type of violence and how can be prevented.
Many people who are agreed with the gun law, are blaming those who have mental problems and the mental system. Shouldn’t psychiatrists be able to identify as dangerous someone like Nikolas Cruz, the young man charged in the school shooting last week in Florida, who scared his classmates, hurt animals and left menacing online posts? Cruz had suffered from depression and was getting counseling at one point.
Why we did not stop someone like Cruz from buying a gun? The question here will be easy to answer by the government. The author said instead of wishing, or hoping that mental system will stop all these mass shooting, we need to pay attention on how we are going to stop people from buying guns.
I do agree with the author that we need to focus on how we are going to stop people from buying guns, and not focusing on everyone who has mental health. According to what the author said in the article above that the mental health system does not identify most of these people because they do not come in to get care. And even if they do, laws designed to preserve the civil liberties of people with mental illness place limits on what treatments can be imposed against a person’s will.
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