On Friday, the National Rifle Association, a special interest group of 4 million members, released a statement about the Sandy Hook tragedy that occurred a week earlier. In that tragedy, 20 children were murdered by 20-year-old Adam Lanza. Few details have been officially released yet about Lanza’s life, because he had few friends, was shy, and apparently was socially awkward.
However, that hasn’t stopped the news media from focusing on some statements of relatives who believe Lanza either had a “personality disorder” (says his brother), “was autistic” (again, his brother), or had Asperger’s syndrome (told by an unidentified member of the family).
This second-hand information is then held up by both the news media and now by the National Rifle Association as evidence that Adam Lanza must’ve been “crazy” or “insane” to have killed 20 innocent children, and six adults who tried to protect them.
After all, who would do such a thing but someone who’s crazy?
Before posting, please read our blog moderation guidelines. The comments below begin with the oldest comments first. Click on the last comments page to jump to the most recent comments.
Before posting, please read our blog moderation guidelines.
Post a Comment:
Copyright © 1995-2013 Psych Central. All rights reserved.
Site last updated: 25 May 2013
|
Very insightful article. But I was wondering how having armed guards roaming the halls would effect a child’s psyche? I suspect they will grow up fearful and believing that guns are the only thing keeping them safe. What do you think?
Well-said and well-done, Dr. Grohol! More on these issues to follow from Dr. James Knoll and me, via Medscape. And I appreciate your posting my latest blog on this website, as well (“Newtown, Narcissism, and the Romancing of Rage”).
Best regards,John….
Ron
Ronald Pies MD
As a social worker and psychotherapist, your response to NRA statement is sound and scary. Most of all, NRA’s suggestion of a national mental health database. Because of dependence on health insurance, the data is there. If the government wanted develop a database of Americans with mental illness all they would have to do is ask the insurance companies for this data.
Being that we (psychotherapists) are required to diagnose a client coming in for therapy in order to get paid by the insurance companies, these clients are vulnerable to prejudice and discrimination and may not suffer from mental illness.
My fear stems from psychotherapy clients stopping their treatment premature so as not to be entered into such a database. Then, in my opinion, is when we as a society will loose what little control we have to identifying clients that are suicidal and homicidal.
The NRA is a simple game of follow the money. NRA says to arm guards and arm teachers – if they had their way they would arm the students. What does this do? SELL MORE GUNS. LaPierre is a whore for the industry and his only agenda is to move product. He does not care about the second amendment any more than Ann Coulter cares about conservative principals – it’s all about unit sales. Sadly, no product for the gun industry is more profitable than high-capacity weapons.
Thank you, thank you thank you. I’ve been posting comments on PsychCentral to the same end as your article, and I am glad to see someone else saying similar things.
The NRA is using fearmongering to promote discrimination. We should all be extremely wary of these efforts, regardless of our stance on gun control.
Do the lunatics at the NRA really think that dangerous mentally ill people would actually be in such a database? Over and over, the mentally ill shooters have been the ones NOT getting treatment.
It is interesting to see how you and I are living in our own little ponds. US has the largest number of private weapons. I am sure there are many countries that have far lower rates of crime as compared to the US and in those countries private people do not own guns. Ireland is one such example where I live. It is interesting to see how the gun lobby is trying to create more problems rather than come up with the solutions. I am sure there are different ways to sort this issue out.
Thank you for this article Dr. Grohol. I do have a quibble.
Where you said, “if you single out people with a mental illness to suggest they are not responsible enough to own a gun, your law will have a predictable, inevitable side-effect — people will just stop talking to health or mental health professionals about their mental health concerns”
It’s not always left up to the person to decide whether they need mental health help. It seems that in at least some of these cases, signs and opportunities for outsider intervention were missed. The Virginia Tech shooter’s behavior caused enough concern for him to be referred to a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation. But apparently the guidelines weren’t specific enough to immediately place him on a registry to restrict him from acquiring guns.
The shooters in Arizona and Colorado also showed increasingly troubling signs, yet apparently not enough to require an intervention and ensure they had no access to guns.
Yes, there is not enough confirmed information of the prior mental condition of the shooter in Connecticut, but if it turns out that reports are true that his mother was having increasing difficulty with him we could assume that she had gotten some professional assistance and advice at some time. Should he have been assigned a social worker to check on his condition? Why, would taking him out to gun ranges to shoot semi-automatic weapons be something she thought would be a good idea?
My point is, sometimes there are signs that call for intervention. We train people how to look for signs when friends and coworkers may be thinking of committing suicide, and that we should intervene. I suspect that these shooters also showed some telltale signs before the act that those around them should be taught to recognize. We have to accept that sometimes people will have to be involuntarily sent in for a mental health assessment. And, if nothing else, their access to guns is immediately restricted.
Can the mental health professionals do more to create standards and guidelines to determine when intervention and involuntary evaluation should be mandatory?
So what you are saying is that some psychotic people are not a danger to themselves or others?
As for armed guards in schools, I was a chapperone on a school trip to Washington DC 2 years ago. The children on the school trip are quite familiar with security measures, as we had them at the airport and again when we entered the US Capitol Building. Are we to think that Congressmen and women are more special than a classroom full of children? So sorry that it has had to come to this, but there are public school districts in some parts of the country that already have their own armed police forces.