The New York Times – By RICHARD A. FRIEDMAN, MD – Published: December 17, 2012 – In Gun Debate, a Misguided Focus on Mental Illness
If you are too busy to read the full article: “In Gun Debate, a Misguided Focus on Mental Illness” by Richard Friedman I suggest that you linger for a few moments just on the last paragraph:
“All the focus on the small number of people with mental illness who are violent serves to make us feel safer by displacing and limiting the threat of violence to a small, well-defined group. But the sad and frightening truth is that the vast majority of homicides are carried out by outwardly normal people in the grip of all too ordinary human aggression to whom we provide nearly unfettered access to deadly force.”
I, for one, am not willing to reduce this tragedy to a mental health issue, or a “failure of the mental health system.” I refuse to be put on the defensive about my profession and/or its clients. My answer to “what do you think was wrong with him?” is I don’t know, but what is really wrong is that it is possible for virtually anyone to own the kind of weapon this young man used to gun down 27 people with horrifying efficiency. Just sayin’.