It's worked so well thus far...

[.338-06]

This is an essay I wrote. I'd appreciate your feedback.

http://alaskarivergirl.blogspot.com/2015/12/its-worked-so-well-thus-far.html

The Wife of 338.06. Call me Rivergirl.

 

[jamesjames]

Forcefully written and evocative. May I suggest that you allude to something even deeper, more nuanced and complicated that just a failure of a mental health non-system.

The fabric of our culture is fraying. The middle class is disappearing. Education and knowledge are valued less than ever in our history. Instead of a melting pot that promotes assimilation into an American society, we have a fragmenting of society into tribes and ethnicities, gated communities and ghettos and barrios like never before. The de-industrialization of this country and the lack of good-paying, blue collar manufacturing jobs is hollowing out the American zeitgeist, destroying the American mythos.

Our economic crisis is self-inflicted from off-shoring jobs, cutting taxes without cutting spending (or raising spending without the guts to raise taxes to pay for it, take your pick) and culture wars. The social safety net has big holes in it. Mental health is but one of the holes.

When people lose faith and become disheartened, when we lack a foundation of trust and something to believe in, we lose the resiliency and strength it takes to deal with sensationalized violence in the media.

School shootings, mass shootings are only increasing if you believe the media as they attempt to redefine mass-killings into incidents that involve fewer deaths and injuries than as they have been traditionally defined. Some media outlets report a handful of mass killings over the past 10 years. Others shamelessly have redefined mass-killings into "mass-shootings" (not killings) of 3 or more people, in or around schools or other public places, including gang-related activities, as an attempt to drive the numbers up and a gun-control agenda forward. Using the new definition, hundreds of incidents are now being counted as "mass-shootings" that were not included in that count before.

So the politics and sensationalism of counting and re-defining mass killings into "mass shootings" may lead us to believe that things are getting worse, even though statistically they are not.

But as you can see, it takes a long narrative to accurately define the issues and understand the problem and more careful analysis to identify possible solutions.

 

[cheygriz]

Spot on. Good article. Damned shame it isn't in the lame stream media..

 

[grampster]

Too bad we don't have more like you, young lady; Those that enjoy the sweet smell of freedom and independence.

 

[larryh1108]

I like it a lot.
Good job!
See if you can get it published in a pro-gun forum.
Maybe the NRA or American Rifleman?
It's too good to not be read.
Thanks for putting into words what so many think.

 

[BSA1]

Many THR's members know I regularly post warnings about believing The Big Lie which is most crimes are committed by people with mental illness. Once you believe this theory then the issue becomes how to protect the public from them. So the "common sense" argument becomes ban the mentally ill from owning guns. Since there are about 300 types of mental disorders and as many as 1 in 4 adult American has a diagnosed mental illness during their life there is a large pool of people to ban owning guns.

Your argument is based on emotion rather than facts. jamesjames makes excellent points about how complicated causes of crime are.

 

[larryh1108]

If we talk about the mass killings (however they are defined) then you truly have to consider these people to be mentally unstable. This includes the bombers and people who crash into crowds with cars. They are just not right.

If we talk about gang on gang violence then the mentally ill aspect is not apropro.

The general scum bags who steal, rob and rape also can't be considered mentally ill even though they are wired differently. They ate just bad seeds.

However, as BSA1 stated, we can't just arbitrarily ban anyone who is mentally ill from owning guns because the category is too wide to be fair and just.

 

[old lady new shooter]

Very powerful essay, thank you for sharing it here.

 

[JTHunter]

Rivergirl - you have a well-written article with a lot of work done on the topic.
There is one slight, technical problem and that is with the appearance of the text. You have so much information that the "san serif" font (Arial?) you used as well as the "font size" (12 pt.?) is just a bit on the small side.
Using this comment as a reference, this is "Times New Roman" - "size 3" (I think it is 12 pt.) whereas this is the same "size 3" but in "Arial". If you prefer the Arial, you might try increasing the size 1 or 2 points for easier readability.
Keep up the good writing!

 

[yokel]

Perhaps society is more corroded and perverse than it once was and the norms of acceptable behavior have changed.

Frequently, these are people who don’t know how to deal with anger, fear, or frustration in their daily lives.

Alas, no specific geographical, political, or cultural region is exempt from this unfortunate scourge, one that really does inflict long-lasting mental and physical harm on thousands of folks.

 

[LoneGoose]

Rivergirl, my hat's off to you. Well done.

 

[MedWheeler]

But what has bred the victimization that these "disturbed" individuals feel? Most of these "mass-shooters" have proclaimed that they have been made victims by their peers, by society, or by some other aspect of their lives in general. They are acting out of a desire to exact revenge or payback for this perceived mistreatment.

In other words, they feel entitled to the happiness and satisfaction that others have enjoyed. When they don't get it, they feel "wronged" by others, by their parents, by their government, or by society. How many times have we heard, after some heinous act committed by someone usually born after about 1976, that "we, as a society, somehow let him down"?

This ideology that "everyone gets a life-participant trophy" is relatively new, pushed by the liberal movement, and perpetuates the idea that one's failures are the fault of society, and one's successes go to the credit of society (remember the infamous line directed at successful small-business owners of "you didn't build that!")? They take away credit and they take away responsibility.

The liberal agenda had filled young, poorly-guided souls with anger, resentment, entitlement, and rage, yet has done nothing to guide them in their handling of these emotions.

Therein, in my opinion, lies the vast majority of the problem. Mental health? Not so much, unless you consider all these self-perceived victims to be mentally ill (and, as fast as we are, as a liberal society, drawing up new labels to do exactly that, maybe we could call it that...)

 

[splattergun]

Too simplistic.
I can't deny there seems to be a mental health crisis in this country and others. We also have a professional association which is calling firearms ownership and belief in the 2nd Amendment as mental illness, and a strong portion of The Rulers who would have us all believing the same.

So, who do we turn to? In whom do we place our trust to define when and how a civil right is to be suspended or revoked? In which state of illness are we justified in removing said right, and when shall it be returned to the individual? The same APA that thinks all of us on this forum are mentally ill? The same political party(ies) that use the fear of firearms as a weapon?

 

[Bo]

Copied and passed on to some friends and relatives, suggest you do the same.
Help get the word out.

 

[Drail]

We used to place mentally disturbed people in asylums. Now we just sell them some pharmaceuticals and send them back out into society and allow them free access to any place they wish to go. It's a bidness - see?........

 

[J-Bar]

You turn a phrase beautifully! I love this:

"The Constitution is not responsible for spilling the blood of our children. Until we accept that, more will die. The Second Amendment is a protection, not a weapon."

May we have permission to use it in our own correspondence?

 

[.338-06]

You turn a phrase beautifully! I love this:

"The Constitution is not responsible for spilling the blood of our children. Until we accept that, more will die. The Second Amendment is a protection, not a weapon."

May we have permission to use it in our own correspondence?

I appreciate the many comments on my essay and the additional views expressed. If you attribute the requested excerpt to me as "Rivergirl" you can use it, but I retain the rights regardless. Thanks.

 

[BluesDancer]

Forcefully written and evocative. May I suggest that you allude to something even deeper, more nuanced and complicated that just a failure of a mental health non-system.

The fabric of our culture is fraying. The middle class is disappearing. Education and knowledge are valued less than ever in our history. Instead of a melting pot that promotes assimilation into an American society, we have a fragmenting of society into tribes and ethnicities, gated communities and ghettos and barrios like never before. The de-industrialization of this country and the lack of good-paying, blue collar manufacturing jobs is hollowing out the American zeitgeist, destroying the American mythos.

Our economic crisis is self-inflicted from off-shoring jobs, cutting taxes without cutting spending (or raising spending without the guts to raise taxes to pay for it, take your pick) and culture wars. The social safety net has big holes in it. Mental health is but one of the holes.

The article is nice but it really just skims the surface. The question is: how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go? Be sure to read the below mentioned book; mass shootings are but a small part of the downstream effects of what this book talks about:

BOOK TITLE: "The Underground History of American Education: An intimate investigation into the prison of modern schooling"
BOOK AUTHOR: John Taylor Gatto

 

[medalguy]

I liked the blog. I agree mental health is not the biggest issue regarding guns and the like, but we do have a problem in this country with metal health issues and our failure to do anything about that, whether we're discussing children with ADD or veterans with PTSD or just folks like the lady next door who's depressed. They all need some kind of help and no one is doing a damn thing about any of it.