I just read that a mother who shot and killed her two daughters in Texas before being shot and killed herself had a history of "mental illness".
Reading the comments after the article I see writers saying things about guns and "crazy people".
If it is not "crazy people" it is "a danger to themselves and others", "mentally unstable", etc.
All of those words are in reference to conditions that we now view as medical conditions.
Yet, we do not treat the people who have these conditions like they are suffering from an illness. Outside of the clinic they get almost no empathy, compassion or care. They get called things like "crazy people". They get dragged into every debate about access to firearms. They get dragged into debates about inadequate access to mental health services, not because we do not like to see them suffer, but because we see them as a threat to public safety.
In the time of modern medicine has there ever been any other condition that is viewed as a medical condition but is stigmatized so much?
Maybe I do not follow the news media enough--I do not even own a TV set--but I do not hear anybody calling for us to respond appropriately to the suffering of those who have mental illnesses. Maybe it is long past due. Maybe the suffering of the mentally ill, not the danger of guns, is where our energy should have been focused all along.