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Navy Yard Shooter Aaron Alexis

Navy Yard Shooter Aaron Alexis

Again.

And again, no answers, no solutions. A lone, disgruntled, disenfranchised or just plain mentally ill gunman who manifested erratic behavior and several indicators for potential violence, but not enough to seriously raise suspicions.

And again, the public debate of what role gun control and individual screening and publicly provided mental health care have in the larger question of mass murder, and why our country is so different from just about every other civilized nation on this score.

And again, nothing will change.

I don’t say this critically, because it is not as if I have an answer. I simply lament the fact that we don’t.

Would more effective identification of those with serious mental disorders help? Somewhat, but our community mental health resources are already strained to the breaking point, we don’t want to devote any more resources to them and Obamacare has no specific provisions.

Would gun control or banning assault weapons help? Somewhat, though by most estimates there are more than a hundred million firearms floating around the country now, so even if we outlawed them tomorrow, those who really wanted to do serious damage could still obtain them.

Would posting more armed guards in schools, offices and places of public gathering help? Apparently not, based on all of our recent experience.

Would having more law-abiding citizens carrying guns help if they happened onto a mass casualty situation? Again, apparently not, for the same reasons.

Anti-gun advocates rightly decry the number of firearms deaths in this nation. They compare us to Japan, where the rate of gun ownership is extremely low and so is the number of annual gun homicides. They don’t bother comparing us to Switzerland, where the number of annual gun homicides is also extremely low, but the rate of gun ownership is high.

The point is not about guns per se; it is about our culture. We have a tradition of guns, we love guns, and we aren’t shy about using them in criminal activity.

What we’re talking about here is changing culture, and that is a lot harder to do than even banning guns, enhancing mental health services or posting guards at every entrance.

And that is why, I fear, we will have to keep saying, “again.”

Again and again and again.

9 Responses to This Time in Washington

  1. Cornerstone says:

    Dr. J, I agree that solutions lie in early childhood intervention. I am somewhat familiar with the Yale infant and child studies. In light of the current U.S. parenting trend of letting children be who they are and do what they want to do, I found the Yale infant study particularly distressing because it found that even as infants, people had a bias toward those most like them, in this case, for other infants who liked the same treat and, in fact, often chose to punish those not like them. Of course, the alarming part both in the infant studies but clearer in the child studies is that young kids up to 7 years old if given a choice dividing up some treats, keeping some for themselves and giving some to another child or getting fewer treats for themselves and giving none to the other child, most often chose to totally deprive the other child, even at the cost of getting fewer treats themselves. So what this tells us is children, in fact, cannot “be free to be you and me” and randomly rewarded for routines tasks but must be taught these things are not acceptable.

    The thing preventing the early childhood intervention lies not just in funding but also in Constitutional rights, and in no small part in the fact that most people do not believe these things are true and need to be fixed. People who grew up without empathy see nothing wrong with their children being the same way.

    It is a steep road we face to solve crime through childhood intervention, but there are some smaller inroads that could be made in that direction. We need to hand some power back to the schools and limit lawsuits by parents and get much stricter on standards to graduate and take the pressure off the schools to graduate nonqualified kids from any grade to any grade. I’ve always said if there’s a problem child, the entire family should be asked to go to counseling. That is all well and good but once that avenue is exhausted and the parents and child are still not rehabilitated, our foster system is not adequate to take on those children in need.

    We must overcome the constitutional restrictions and be able to have periodic oversight of children who are being home-schooled. Home schooling in itself isn’t the issue; it’s a certain segment of who tends to do it, that being religious fundamentalists who don’t want their kids to know any other way and abusers who don’t want anyone to find out.

    It’s a tall order because no one is more defensive than parents about how to raise their children.

  2. drJ says:

    Good Evening Mindhunters!

    Is it me or am I really just that naïve to believe that there is a solution. Perhaps we can’t do anything to prevent the violence occurring at the present time but I am strongly of the belief we can PREVENT it from happening in the future. Based on the clinical research studies from Yale Child Study Center, University College London, Menninger Clinic, and many other fine institutions psychoanalytic/attachment researchers have been pinpointing the interpersonal and neuropsychological mechanisms underlying the role that the mother infant attachment has on emotional security and the consequences of insecure attachment on mental illness but especially on developing the capacity to commit violence and murder. Furthermore, promising evidence also suggests early interventions geared toward enhancing parental response sensitivity especially regarding empathic reflection of infant, toddler emotions can have significant effects on promoting security and reducing negative behaviors in children. I realize the limitation and obstacles that may make this intervention difficult to truly reach every parent child dyad with attachment pathology , but what about training teachers, or psychology, social work, interns, etc. to develop these skills of response sensitivity and conduct outreach programs in the school systems which, is where we will find our future adults, with or without future psychopathology problems. I know this, just scratches the surface, but there are interventions already designed to conduct such prevention strategies and it frustrates me when I listen to the media and no one discusses prevention. I am working on a book to get my ideas across and strongly hope to someday make a difference.
    Despite my frustration, am so glad to have found your website. I think it is absolutely phenomenal. All comments are welcome!
    Dr. Phaedurs

    • This is an interesting discussion and we welcome Dr. J to the dialogue, as well as thank you for your kind words. We firmly agree that the solution you propose would work IF it could be implemented. Long-term studies, for instance, have shown the benefits of head-start programs. The issue, of course, is the IF. As you and Cornerstone both point out, this would take a huge commitment of financial and human resources as well as, perhaps, changing some laws and many attitudes. There doesn’t seem to be a public commitment to enhancing mental health or early child development resources and infrastructure. Acknowledging that, though, we should certainly aspire to everything you and Cornerstone mention.
      Thank you for your involvement and we look forward to future comments.

  3. watson says:

    I don’t think ‘guns’ are to blame (although I think military assault weapons are ridiculous and unnecessary).
    I agree….it’s… US ‘culture’.
    In the USA….
    A.) We do not believe people should help/ care for others because each persons problems are their own.
    B.) We do not believe government should provide any benefits to citizens in return for taxes except military/ police/ fire. But otherwise it’s ‘every man for himself’.
    It’s true the US is the only advanced country that still follows this culture. None of my foreign friends understand it or can believe it. History shows it’s right out of the 19th century (1800’s) and why it’s practiced here 100 years after everyone else moved on from it…I don’t know.
    However, I think American culture ‘will’ change…the ‘oldsters’ (60-90) who run the country today ‘can’t’ change….their adult children of the next generation will probably follow them…but the next generation…’will’ change… It won’t be in our lifetimes…But I think by 2100 America will be like Europe…we’ll have benefits for the citizens, high taxes, subsidized/ free health care for all, way less guns, mental health services, better lifestyles thereby.
    It ‘has’ to come because the other 35 and soon 45 advanced countries can’t be wrong and it is the tide of history….no one…can stand against history…The US can’t pretend forever it’s 1913/ or 1813..instead of 2013. By the time US culture finally joins the world 70 years from now, those who oppose the change today will be long since dead.

  4. Cornerstone says:

    Alexis is the perfect example of how we brush blatant warning signs under the carpet. I was shaking my head at the initial first reports of the massacre as they described him as someone with no prior history and then described two incidents of him waving a firearm around. It sounds like he was mismedicated for insomnia when his problems went much deeper, as he’s hearing things through the walls and calling police. Privacy laws make it hard, but at some point we need to enable medical and law enforcement to share information via computer so they can put two and two together. His mental illness was simply not treated. And if any background check was run, because we are so quick to not charge people or refer them for mental illnesses, there was probably nothing alarming at first glance.

    Of course, the biggest obstacle to treating the mentally ill is getting them to take their medications as prescribed, which is nearly as big a fail rate as rehabilitation, but at least this man did reach out, and repeatedly. Why these things went unhandled is a failure and indicative of a big blind spot in our system.

  5. ramessesII says:

    I mean I agree it will be again and again and again

  6. ramessesII says:

    I agree with you – in large work areas – schools and such – even the local pool halls can get someone employed for minimum wage to do bag checks – things are simple to me. My own mother went through my backpack all the time for free when young. People just got to care is all.

    Again, again, again – not complicated.

    The Oklahoma thing or the old cars and bodies that interests me.

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