So as the current anti-guns/invest in mental health discussion continues to rage (and most likely won’t be dying down at least this month) I have been thinking more and more about our country’s expectation of safety (and also fairness in all aspects of daily life but let’s just focus on safety for the moment) for all citizens.
Is it possible to keep the citizens of this (or any) country safe? A fairly broad question with a whole slew of variables but the absolute simple answer is: No. It’s is an absolute impossibility. From the day we are born until the day we die we face life threatening hazards at every turn. The newly born may not survive to reach their new home because of multiple medical hazards they are exposed to in the hospital. They may be in a car accident on the way home. Their safety is uncertain.
As we age the dangers become more copious. Playground accidents, exposure to household chemicals, electrocutions, abductions, etc… Our teenage years add the dangers of drinking, drugs, gangs, more types of accidents, sports injuries resulting in death or disability, etc…
And in addition to all the normal accidents associated with simply living, we run the risk of crossing paths with those intent to do harm to others. Forget about the cause for a moment. There simply exist in the world a great many people who wish to injure or kill their fellow man. Their reasons are myriad.
There are risks too numerous to mention and they vary from region to region, state to state, country to country. A farmer may never be at risk for a mugging in his life like an urbanite, but neither is the city dweller at great risk from livestock or farm implements.
My point here is that it is an absolute impossibility to legislate the people on one city block into safety let alone an entire nation. Which is why, as I’ve watched the Sandy Hook tragedy become distilled down into a guns versus mental health issue, I’ve had to just sort of shake my head in bewilderment again.
My family used to own intermediate care facilities for the mentally ill in the 70s and 80s. These were apartment buildings that would typically house 15-20 individuals with significant enough mental disease that they couldn’t care for themselves but who, with the proper care and supervision, could lead relatively productive and comfortable lives. They were able to go out in public, this was not a locked down setting. And our staff made sure they received all their medications, that their medical needs were taken care of, and that their food and clothing needs were always provided for.
In the late 80s it was decided that these type people were healthy enough that they should be able to dwell on their own unsupervised. No amount of lobbying, arguing, or contacting of politicians could reverse this progressive plan to reintroduce these individuals back into society. And so these people are now free to live wherever they choose and are able. Supervised they posed no sort of threat to anyone. Unsupervised…?
I tell that story to give some of my background. I have grown up with the type of individual that shot all those poor kids at Sandy Hook. I am also here to tell you that psychiatry and psychology are the most tenuous of diagnostic practices. If you put the same patient in three different rooms with three different doctors you will get three different psychiatric diagnoses. Unless we are ready to start imprisoning people before they commit crimes, then limiting the rights of those who may or may not have mental disease is a dangerous slippery slope. Who gets to decide the cutoff point as to the severity of illness limiting rights? Is the soccer mom taking a mild anti-depressant a risk? You bet. How many kids have been suffocated, drowned, or killed in some other fashion by them? A lot is the answer. But how do you limit the rights of an otherwise normal population of women to avoid the tragedies of a very few?
Knee-jerk legislation to fund mental illness research is as ridiculous as legislating more gun control. It will make a certain segment of society feel better but ultimately is not going to do any more to ensure the safety of the citizens of the United States than gun control is. All that will occur is that the rights of a very large population will be limited to avoid a few fringe individuals. I’m not talking about the criminally insane here. Safety is an illusion.
At the end of the day WE are responsible for our safety. Not the government (other than national defense). WE must guard against the dangers waiting to steal the lives of the infants. WE must educate our children against the dangers waiting for them as they grow. WE must explain over and over again to our teens why they are not as invincible as they think they are. And WE must be constantly on guard for our own safety. Asking the government to provide it in any form is simply an exercise in futility and a recipe for further loss of liberty.
