Gun Control....or not

I don’t like guns. Actually, they scare the crap out of me. They scare me so much that I BFE from having a gun in my house for the two years she lived with me. This doesn’t mean I don’t know how to fire one. I’ve been fortunate enough to have friends who have taken me to shoot. I’ve shot a glock, a sig, and a shotgun (not all in the same day). I actually like shooting and advise anyone who never has shot a gun to go and try it out. Lots of fun. Of course, this doesn’t mean that I’m still not terrified of guns.


The recent killings in CT have once again brought to the forefront of the media the gun control battle. Which reminds me, are we still facing a fiscal cliff??? Has anyone heard anything about that in the news lately…nah – this CT is far more sensational! Anyway, being terrified of guns and having a daughter who has now completed her Elementary Education degree, one would think that I’d be for gun control. But, I am a logical human being and one with access to a plethora of information at my fingertips. So, I did what I do best and researched.

First I found the statistics on homicides that show more people are killed by non-gun assaults than those with guns. I was completely validated when I read the number one weapon used in violent crimes (supposedly according to FBI statistics) is a baseball bat. OF course, I can’t validate the statistic, but like that my defensive weapon of choice seems to be the choice of criminals when inflicting pain onto others.

Next I researched gun laws. I would hope everyone realizes that guns laws are governed at a state level. Connecticut has a ban on assault riffles. It also requires permits for purchase of hand guns. In order to “carry” a person has complete a course and get a permit to carry. These laws are more restrictive than many states and seemingly the “ban” that gun control supporters want to put into effect nationwide. But, they didn’t seem to do anything to prevent the tragedy in CT. So logically, why would I come to believe they would help prevent future tragedies?

Being an engineer, I’ve spent many years doing root cause failure analysis. What these means is when something breaks, we look to see where the system broke down and caused the failure. For example, if you get a flat tire on your mountain bike, you patch it (put a band aid on it). Then, the patch breaks and you put a bigger patch on it. Then you get another blow out. This is because you are not fixing the root cause…bad suspension which allows the bike to smash down on your tire, causing the blowout. Even if you continue to patch and put better, stronger, faster tires on the bike…until you fix the suspension, you haven’t fixed the root cause. This is how we address every problem we encounter…don’t put the band aid on it…find the root cause of the failure (which may not be anywhere near the failure) and fix that.

And the root cause failure I see in the CT shootings and many others is the mental state of the individual committing the crime. That is what needs to be addressed. It seems to me the way we handle our mentally challenged neighbors is despicable. They are ostracized, bullied and in general, treated poorly by those in authority. It tears my heart to see it.

I read an article by a psychiatrist and think she has indicated where the system needs to be fixed.

1) The US Congress: Please create better laws to ensure the ticking time bomb is caught before it is too late. Make it much easier for a family to get a potentially dangerous person into mandated treatment. This means less paperwork, too. We need to support parents and mental health professionals.

2) The US Justice Department: It’s time we enacted a Health Law Court. Have doctors serve as judges and streamline legal proceedings for tough medical and psychiatric cases. Go to commongood.org for ideas on how this can be done.

3) Health Insurance Companies: Man up. My main complaint is with you. You make it so hard to keep people in the hospital when they need to be there, and it’s even harder to keep them in intensive outpatient services. Please create protocols for difficult cases and loosen the purse strings for extremely troubled individuals –- before it’s too late.

4) Network TV: Please create some exciting television that is actually educational about mental illness. Or least give us a “Gossip Girl” who takes her medication and sees her psychiatrist regularly. Less stigma, better health.

6) The Hollywood PR Machine: Please find the mental health community a really attractive celebrity to get the US mental health system some money. I am glad that George Clooney and Angelina Jolie are doing so much for Africa, but can we borrow one of them please?

7) High School Students: Tell the popular kids to stop being such dicks to the odd kids or the ones they don’t understand.

8) Community Psychiatry Health Researchers: You have kick-ass and innovative ideas for how to reform the system. Could one of you put on a sequin dress and walk a red carpet please? We need to get you more money.

Yes, I stole that list from someone else, But it resonated with me. My heart breaks knowing there are people out there that need help and are being denied it. Then when they do, what is pretty much their “sentence “ due to the lack of help for them, everyone is out to cast stones. What a fucked up world we live in!