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Mental help, not more gun control.
Mental help, not more gun control.
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Submitted by LGYCE over a year ago | |
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I remember visiting this website once...
It was called Opinion: The real gun problem is mental health, not NRA - CNN.com
Here's some stuff I remembered seeing:
Mel Robbins: When there\'s a mass shooting, don\'t blame NRA, blame mental health laws
She says we must adopt nationwide "need for treatment" standard for civil commitment
She says mental health laws prevented cops from holding Isla Vista shooter before rampage
Robbins: Fixing mental health laws would give families, professionals more control
Editor\'s note: Mel Robbins is a CNN commentator and legal analyst. Robbins is the founder of Inspire52.com, a positive news website, and author of "Stop Saying You\'re Fine," about managing change. She speaks on leadership around the world and in 2014 was named outstanding news talk radio host by the Gracie Awards. Follow her on Twitter @melrobbins. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- Next time there\'s a mass shooting, don\'t jump to blame the National Rifle Association and lax gun laws. Look first at the shooter and the mental health services he did or didn\'t get, and the commitment laws in the state where the shooting took place.
Strengthening gun control won\'t stop the next mass shooter, but changing our attitudes, the treatment options we offer and the laws for holding the mentally unstable and mentally ill for treatment just might.
Take the case of the recent mass shooting incident in Isla Vista, California. Police say Elliot Rodger went on a killing spree near the University of California campus in Santa Barbara, shooting and stabbing victims, killing six and wounding 13 before he killed himself.
He had legally purchased three guns, passed a federal background check and met several other requirements in one of the most liberal states with the toughest gun control laws in the country. California was one of eight states that passed major gun reforms in the wake of 2012\'s Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, in which a lone gunman killed 20 children and six adults.
In fact California\'s gun control laws received an "A-" grade from both The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, the Los Angeles Times reported.
In this climate, how did Rodger succeed in his lethal plan? It wasn\'t the gun laws, it was the lack of common sense mental commitment laws.
A 2014 report by the Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit aimed at removing the stigma of mental illness and barriers to treatment, analyzed the state of mental commitment laws state by state, looking at both the "quality of involuntary treatment (civil commitment) laws which facilitate emergency hospitalization during a psychiatric emergency and the availability of court orders mandating continued treatment as a condition of living in a community."
On virtually all counts, California received an "F" (it got a "C" on emergency evaluation). In Rodger\'s case, a friend concerned about alarming videos he\'d posted on YouTube had alerted a county mental health staff member, and police had conferred with his mother, but this was not enough to get him committed.
Under California\'s Welfare and Institutions Code Section 5150, a person must be a danger to himself or others before he can be held for 72 hours for evaluation, and the standard is even higher to mandate treatment. Police visiting Rodger found him to be "polite and courteous" and not an apparent danger, so they had no authority to detain him or search his home for weapons to seize. The reason had nothing to do with gun laws. It had to do with the commitment laws in California.
We need to adopt a nationwide standard for involuntary civil commitment, and that standard should be "need for treatment." If a family member, law enforcement officer or mental health professional is concerned about the well-being of an individual, they should be able to have that individual held for a mental health evaluation.
Indeed, the Treatment Advocacy Center\'s report describes the exact situation police found themselves in when they conducted that "well-being" check on Rodger:
"But what if the person is neither threatening violence against anyone nor at any apparent imminent risk of injuring himself? What if the concern spurring the family member to seek help is simply that the person is suffering, tormented by terrifying delusions, yet somehow unaware that he is ill? Do we as a society have reason to intervene? To answer \'yes,\' we must believe there is a compelling societal imperative beyond preventing imminent injury or death -- an imperative to liberate a person from a hellish existence he would never -- in his \'right mind\' -- choose."
Police officers walk on a rooftop at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, September 16, after a shooting rampage in the nation\'s capital. At least 12 people and suspect Aaron Alexis were killed, according to authorities.
Connecticut State Police evacuate children from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012. Adam Lanza opened fire in the school, killing 20 children and six adults before killing himself. Police say he also shot and killed his mother in her Newtown home.
James Holmes pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to opening fire July 20, 2012, at the Century Aurora 16 theater in Aurora, Colorado, during the midnight premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises." Twelve people were killed and dozens were wounded. Holmes is charged with 142 counts, including first-degree murder. His trial is scheduled to begin in February 2014.
A military jury convicted Army Maj. Nidal Hasan on Friday, August 23, 2013, of 13 counts of premeditated murder in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. During the November 5, 2009 shooting, 13 people died and 32 were injured.
Jiverly Wong shot and killed 13 people at the American Civic Association in Binghamton, New York, before turning the gun on himself on April 3, 2009, police say. Four other people were injured at the immigration center shooting. Wong had been taking English classes at the center.
Pallbearers carry a casket of one of Michael McLendon\'s 10 victims. McLendon shot and killed his mother in her Kingston, Alabama, home, before shooting his aunt, uncle, grandparents and five more people. He shot and killed himself in Samson, Alabama, on March 10, 2009. McClendon left a note saying he put his mother "out of her misery."
Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho went on a shooting spree on the campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, on April 16, 2007. Cho killed two people at the West Ambler Johnston dormitory and, after chaining the doors closed, killed another 30 at Norris Hall, home to the Engineering Science and Mechanics Department. He wounded 17 people before killing himself. It is the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history.
Mark Barton walked into two Atlanta trading firms on July 29, 1999, and fired shots, leaving nine dead and 13 wounded, police say. Hours later police found Barton at a gas station in Acworth, Georgia, where he pulled a gun and killed himself. The day before Barton had bludgeoned his wife and his two children in their Stockbridge, Georgia, apartment, police say. The children\'s birth mother and grandmother had been murdered six years earlier in Alabama. Barton was questioned but never charged in that crime.
Eric Harris, left, and Dylan Klebold entered Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999, armed with bombs and guns. The students killed 13 and wounded 23 before killing themselves.
George Hennard crashed his pickup through the plate glass window of Luby\'s Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, on October 16, 1991, before fatally shooting 23 people and committing suicide.
James Huberty shot and killed 21 people, including children, at a McDonald\'s in San Ysidro, California, on July 18, 1984. A police sharpshooter killed Huberty an hour after the rampage began.
Prison guard George Banks is led through the Luzerne County courthouse in 1985. Banks killed 13 people, including five of his children, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on September 25, 1982. He was sentenced to death in 1993 and received a stay of execution in 2004. His death sentence was overturned in 2010.
Officers carry victims across the University of Texas at Austin campus after Charles Joseph Whitman opened fire from the school\'s tower, killing 16 people and wounding 30. Police officers shot and killed Whitman, who had killed his mother and wife earlier in the day.
Howard Unruh, a World War II veteran, shot and killed 13 of his neighbors on September 5, 1949, In Camden, New Jersey. Unruh barricaded himself in his house after the shooting. Police overpowered him the next day. He was ruled criminally insane and committed to a state mental institution.
Could UCSB shooting have been prevented?
The truth is that commitment laws shouldn\'t be a stopgap to prevent imminent harm, but rather seen as an essential tool to help a loved one needing treatment before things reach the imminent harm stage.
Next, we\'ve got to connect the dots between mental health records and National Instant Background Check. In 2014, Mayors Against Illegal Guns released a report calling for states to close this gap. It found that 11 states and the District of Columbia have no reporting laws, and another 12 states have submitted fewer than 100 mental health records to the national background check system.
But connecting the dots won\'t help unless every gun sale is subject to an instant background check imposed on all licensed gun retailers.
And finally, the police need tools as well. They need training and the discretion to ask about and remove guns from any household where there is a domestic dispute, a call for a "well-being check," or a person who exhibits violent or unstable behavior. They also need a mental health professional on call for such checks.
Connecticut, Indiana and, yes, even Texas have firearms seizure statutes aimed at dangerous persons. Laws like these enable the police to temporarily remove guns from someone who is exhibiting dangerous behavior until a judge can make a final determination on fitness for gun ownership based on evidence presented at a hearing.
I know what you\'re thinking. "This will only penalize gun owners. Most gun owners are law-abiding citizens." You\'re right. And most gun owners believe in responsible ownership and agree that these mental health measures make sense
You may also be thinking: "But most people suffering from serious mental illness are nonviolent." You\'re right about that, too. Indeed, mentally ill people only account for a small fraction of the gun deaths in America every year and the vast majority of those are suicide, not homicide. Violence by the mentally ill is usually a symptom of the untreated mental illness -- that\'s why access to treatment, not gun control, is the answer.
Overhauling mental health laws would give family members and professionals more responsibility and authority in care decisions. And in some cases, medications and therapies should not be optional.
We\'ve got a major problem on our hands. And since guns aren\'t going anywhere, the discussion about solutions needs to place the focus somewhere else.
Even the NRA agrees that the seriously mentally ill should never own a gun. So let\'s finally do something about it.
Georgia law allows guns in some schools, bars, churches
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal signed a wide-ranging gun bill into law Wednesday that has critics howling and proponents applauding.
Six months after a gunman burst into a Newtown, Connecticut, elementary school and slaughtered 20 children and killed six others, promises of stricter national gun control laws remain largely unfulfilled.
The sign at the door of the Colt factory displays a gun with a slash through it: "No loaded or unauthorized firearms beyond this point." Understandable for workers at a plant, but also a bit ironic, considering one of the largest arsenals in America lies just beyond.
States tighten, loosen gun laws after Newtown
Much attention has been paid to the defeat in Congress of proposals to ban assault weapons and expand background checks for firearm purchases.
Morgan Spurlock\'s "Inside Man" gives CNN viewers an inside and in-depth look at the issue of firearms -- as viewed from behind the counter of a gun store. Here are five things to know about the debate.
The Senate defeated a compromise plan to expand background checks on firearms sales as well as a proposal to ban some semi-automatic weapons modeled after military assault weapons.
As Congress grapples with major gun control legislation proposals, brothers and sisters, mothers, fathers and children write about the people they loved and lost to gun violence and how it changed their lives.
Hear from both sides of the gun debate as opinions clash.
It was a bit awkward the first time Kate Daggett asked the question.
Many Americans and lawmakers are in favor of continuing or expanding background checks on gun purchases, but few understand how the checks work.
Still stinging from the shooting deaths at Sandy Hook, Connecticut lawmakers approved what advocacy groups call the strongest and most comprehensive gun legislation in the nation.
It took fewer than five minutes for Adam Lanza to squeeze off 154 rounds, upending life in Newtown, Connecticut, and triggering a renewed national debate over gun control.
Who should get them? Join the gun control debate and share your perspective on CNN iReport.
Before having children, she was a firm believer that guns were dangerous. Now this mother of three has a different perspective.
In the biggest fight over firearms since December\'s massacre at a Connecticut elementary school, gun-control advocates are poised to notch a victory in an unlikely place.
A former drug addict turned anti-violence crusader, and a man who lost his father in a temple shooting. These are just two of many in the conversation.
At a town hall that brought all sides of the gun debate together, was there a consensus? Sort of.
The federal background check system for gun buyers didn\'t stop a mentally ill man from buying a gun, which he used to kill his mother.
In disputes over the future of gun laws, people espousing different positions often literally don\'t understand each other.
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