Maybe the Fast is getting to you, brother. I'm not trying to "win" some argument. Let's drop the attitude and tone and just get back to the discussion. It sounds like you're making this personal because you knew the guy.
Your post seemed to make "gun culture" linked to all this madness. I simply disagreed with you. At this point in history, we want someone or something to blame. It's human nature. We want to burn something in effigy when we're at the end of our rope. And, frankly, we Americans are at the end of our rope with all these school shootings, bombings, drive-by's, murders, and random violence. It's so draining on our national soul. So, we want a quick scarecrow to burn in effigy to feel some relief or sense of alleviating the crisis.
Perhaps your friend did not possess mental illness, perhaps he did and you were not able to perceive it? I don't know because I know neither of you. I, of course, take you at your word. But my point is that this country is LOADED with mental illness. I think it's sad that liberals tend to think conservatives are just somehow concocting a "mental illness argument" talking point to shy away from guns. It's actually not true.
As you know, I'm a teacher. I've been teaching 20 years, so I do have some perspective on how society is shifting, especially with parenting and children. I'm sure you'd respect my anecdotes also. In the current school in which I teach, I've been here since 2005. It's now 2018. In 13 years we've changed dramatically. What a difference a decade makes.
When I came to my school we had mentally ill, horrible-behaving kids. But the thing is---we had maybe 6-8 in the whole school. Then the rest of our troubled kids were just angry kids or just classic "brats." But after 13 years now we're looking at around 3-4 mentally ill kids IN EVERY CLASSROOM. Yep, you heard me right. Last year I had a girl with acute, severe paranoia. She cut herself all over, thought everyone was out to get her, talked to herself, had no friends, wandered all over the place, and all she talked about was killing herself or dying or how everyone hated her. She was never once correct. She was on psych meds. That same year I had a kid who had severe Aspergers. When ANYTHING didn't go his way in the smallest way, he'd cry, stomp his feet, have a melt-down, and run away from the rest of the class. Principal would have to chase him down and give him a "cooling off period." Then I had a second Asperger's kid who was FAR WORSE. If he scored under 95% on any test, he'd cry, pound his hand against his head, go home and tell his mom he wanted to die, talk about how unfair everyone was and how they were out to get him, etc. Then I had Lily who had severe disabilities and had some kind of undiagnosed paranoia. She thought even her friends were all out to get her. Her maturity was that of a kindergartner in sixth grade. She had no ability to control her emotions. Cried at the drop of a hat. She turned me and every other kid or adult in constantly thinking we hated her. Paranoid, frantic.
This year I have plenty of mental illness in my room. One of the kids in my room was terribly violent in his mental illness. Bipolar, ADHD, and had oppositional defiance. Completely crazy. The kid would have frequent melt-downs. In those melt-downs he'd get violent, throw things at kids, flip them off, tell them all to "F" themselves, and would ATTACK other kids. Yep, attack. He punched so many kids and injured so many kids that we had to assign behavior intervention aides to deal JUST WITH HIM! Finally, he threatened to bring a knife and firearms to school and use them on kids he hated. That was the last straw. I got him kicked out of here.
I've had mentally ill kids threaten and hurt so many other kids and many times I have felt unsafe.
So, in 13 years, my school is littered with mental illness. We have kids from kindergarten to eighth grade on our campus walking around talking to themselves, talking to trees, needing psych help, medicated with Prozac and other crazy drugs, and our school district in general is just rife with mentally ill kids and behavior out of control. It has reached such a fever pitch that now each campus has "BIA's" or "behavior intervention aides," at least 2, usually 3-4. We now are having to come up with behavior academies to accommodate the severe mentally ill and worst behaved. There was a city-wide community forum to address the out-of-control behavior and widespread inability for our district to cope with this much insanity recently. It is the #1 issue discussed at our union meetings and schoolboard meetings.
There is a nation-wide epidemic of mental illness. It's just a fact. And our country is ill-equipped at this point in time to cope with it. More kids, teens, and adults on psych drugs than any moment in history. We have a nation-wide shortage of psychologists, psychiatrists, and mental health professionals as well as institutions and offices to deal with it. I know something about this from my work PLUS I have a best friend whose daughter is mentally ill. It was a NIGHTMARE trying to get help for her! After 4 years of hardly getting any help, having cops at his house, institutionalizing his daughter and having her hospitalized over and over, only now is he getting help. The waiting list for seeing a child psychologist is like a Soviet bread line.
So when I bring up mental health, I mean it. I'm not watching Fox News, hearing the buzz words "mental health" and trying to debate you. I'm simply stating the obvious. We're in trouble as a country.
I'm a firearms enthusiast. I go to the rifle and pistol range a lot. I grew up shooting. My kids shoot. The good folks at the rifle range who own myriad firearms are not villains to whom mosque-bombers and lunatics should possibly be linked. These are mostly good people. "Gun culture" has always been there. In 1965 there was a healthy "gun culture" in America. There were hardly any school shootings anywhere? Why? In 1950 no shootings and yet plenty of hunters, shooters, and gun owners. Why? In 1980, same thing. Why in 2018 is it different?
I'm just tired of hearing guns blamed. And I'm weary of hearing gun-owners vilified and gun culture sounding like a bunch of crazed red necks with torches secretly plotting murders and mayhem.
Mental illness IS a problem. It's not the entire problem, but it's a big part. It needs to be addressed.
I'm sorry your friend did this. I'm sure it hit you hard. I can only imagine.
No... We're not talking about teenagers. We are talking about my adult friend who showed no signs of mental illness in 2014 but bombed a mosque in 2017. Don't make this into something it's not in order to feel like you have won an argument that frankly never existed.
