I’d be remiss not to point out that Medscape, in this context, is merely reporting medical news. Their article centers around a new analysis, drawn from the Columbia Mass Murder Database (CMMD), which suggests that mental illness is incidental in mass shootings.

“People with serious mental illness constitute only a small portion of the perpetrators of gun violence in this country,” Paul Appelbaum, MD, professor of psychiatry, medicine, and law at Columbia University in New York City. told Medscape.

The analysis covered 82 incidents of mass murder in academic settings including schools, colleges, and universities. The average number of victims of these incidents was eight. All 82 incidents were initiated by men (mean age 28), and 67% were Caucasian. About two thirds (63%) involved guns.

More than three-quarters (77%) of all perpetrators of mass murders in academic settings had no recorded history of psychotic symptoms. (emphasis added by author)

Swiss Cheese

To extrapolate data and draw conclusions from an existing data set, the cohort needs to be at least mildly historically similar. All this analysis suggests is that 77% of the shooters were not yet diagnosed as suffering from a mental illness or had insufficient coping mechanisms to deal with the stresses they faced. The authors conclusions, that only 23% of the shooters suffered from mental illness is an overreach of monumental proportions.

Most modern research suffers from these biased slants, which either lose sight of their controls or interpret data in wildly irresponsible fashion. All the more sad, as the true value of the data is lost behind an overriding narrative the authors wish to justify. What is clear from this analysis data, is that our systems for managing and identifying mental illness and related conditions are flawed. As is the care we offer to those diagnosed.

A significant majority of these shootings may have been prevented had individuals with a myriad of life challenges or psychological struggles been flagged. This begs the argument, why did the 23% slip through the cracks if they had been diagnosed and were, one would assume, under treatment?

These incidents, targeting young children by individuals who are themselves still just teenagers or newly minted adults, are a new phenomenon. Discovering the “why” matters almost as much as restricting access to weapons.

What can the 82 teach us?

Numerical data in this instance, used as it was, for the analysis above, is of little import and can be manipulated to suit any agenda. What researchers should instead be pursuing are the 82 lives that led to these horrific events.

Who were these young people, social backgrounds, family, schooling, infractions with law and authority, medical histories, friendships, potential triggers, medication, anything and everything that can be found that relates to their lives. Examine this and patterns will emerge. Patterns that may very well point the finger of blame to society, broken families, flawed mental health policies and the social stigma of reaching out for help – even in-patient care.

Identifying these patterns and potential triggers matters. Our human capabilities no longer limit us and AI can be incorporated to search social media for matches, allowing for early intervention. Teenagers or young adults do not just pick up a weapon and commit mass murder. They progress, in increments, to this course of action.

There are always signs.

Often we simply fail to see the signs and sadly, when we do pick up on them, we tend to ignore them – we cannot image that they will lead to something so horrible.

But, there is another challenge – access to mental health help. Ask anyone who needs to find a therapist how daunting the task is. It can take months, sometimes more than a year, to secure an appointment with someone with experience to address serious mental health challenges.

Again, this is unsustainable in a society where stable parenting is becoming an archaic concept, whether by design or necessity. Stable homes are in rapid decline.

The real indictment of this analysis are the diagnosed 23%. They represent the ever-increasing cost of our inability to help children who are crying out for guidance, care and a sense of belonging and purpose. How many lives could have been spared? How many lives will still be forfeit? We can, and must, do better.

Reaching for the closest solution

Mental health issues may be the motivating factor to committing mass murder. The preferred tool of choice for these murders is the assault weapon or other firearm. While we can debate the motivation for each individual heinous act, this choice of tool is far simpler to comprehend. Ease of access.

In countries where access to firearms is limited or non-existent, school shootings DO NOT HAPPEN. In America, gun ownership, legal or otherwise has reached pandemic proportions. It is even questionable at this point if tightening ownership laws and policy changes will have any impact whatsoever on teens being able to find and use weapons designed to maim and kill, so prolific is their distribution in American society.

While we struggle to find ways to prevent these tragedies from a mental health perspective, an arduous and difficult task, surely removing the preferred tool from the equation makes far more sense. No access to guns equates to no school shootings. A globally proven fact.

The post Why It is Imperative We Redefine Mental Illness and How We Treat It appeared first on Medika Life.

The deaths of small children do not move us beyond tears and platitudes to policy action. What will? We are lost if we don’t demand a significant change in gun access policy after reading how a two-year-old wandered lost and frightened after both parents were shot and killed. After people going food shopping in Buffalo were slain. After people going to relax at a club in Colorado Springs were brutally murdered. How about the deaths at Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia? Empathy drained. Courageous political action is tossed aside for preferred partisan politics.

Past policies passed in the bi-partisan Senate move are weak compromises.  They are face-saving actions for both major parties, not life-sparing policy moves that will reduce the death toll from gun violence. We need to make a move that will save lives, requiring a complete ban on automatic weapons. The Senate’s bipartisan gun deal includes additional mental health funding, increased school safety, more crisis intervention programs, and incentives for states to align juvenile records in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. But automatic, high-powered velocity weapons – weapons of war – continue to be accessible.

High-Powered Weapon Purchases Are Climbing

In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed an assault-weapons ban, which resulted in the reduction of the AR-15 and similar semiautomatic rifles sales. The Ban only covered a 10-year window, in which mass shootings were down dramatically. When the assault-weapons ban expired 10 years later, gun manufacturers filled the production pipeline and sales rose. Recently – and tragically – the AR-15 has been at the scene of almost every mass shooting to hit the headlines in recent years. It’s design – the spin of the bullet – and firepower make killing as easy as pressing the trigger again and again until its 30-bullet magazine is spent.

The United States is witnessing a record year of gun violence – more than 600 mass shootings in 2022. The pressure is on lawmakers to enact meaningful reforms. But, little action is expected to curb this continued slaughter of the innocent.

Weapons of War are Designed for One Purpose – to Kill

For six years as a military paratrooper and combat medic, I carried an M-4, the preferred weapon of war for infantry entering combat.  The M-4 is a smaller, more convenient version of the M-16.  These are the weapons of war used in past mass shootings.  Some express misguided comfort that the A-15 is semi-auto only, and the M16 is fully automatic. But in combat situations, soldiers rarely fire on automatic. Few do, for every bullet counts.  Let’s stop calling these rifles “automatic.”  They are weapons created for war – weapons of war to wound and kill others.

Civilians are the Victims of this Gun-Epidemic War

We must heed the words of the onsite physician first responder in Highland Park, Dr. David Baum: 

“The people who were (killed) were blown up by that gunfire … blown up. The horrific scene of some bodies is unspeakable for the average person. I’ve never served, but those are wartime injuries. Those are what are seen in victims of war, not victims at a parade.”

Dr. Roy Guerrero, a healer of children who rushed to Uvalde Memorial Hospital after the massacre of 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Texas, testified during a congressional hearing on gun violence:

“I chose to be a pediatrician. I chose to take care of children. “Keeping them safe from preventable diseases I can do. Keeping them safe from bacteria and brittle bones, I can do. But making sure our children are safe from guns, that’s the job of our politicians and leaders.”

The words of Drs Baum and Guerrero echo a simple truth: our politicians are too removed from the steady death toll and its horror to fulfill their responsibilities in protecting the nation. America is at war within itself. Our political leaders decline to call for a ceasefire despite rising body count.  Let’s call these weapons what they are – weapons of war. 

The AR-15-styled weapon was used in the Sandy Hook massacre, the Aurora theater massacre, the San Bernardino massacre, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, mass murder in Buffalo, NY, Uvalde, Texas, Highland Park, IL and the most recent shootings. What’s the difference between the AR-15 and its military counterpart, the M16?  They are assault weapons that hold a 30-bullet magazine and offer users the same firepower. Their killing capacity, like their power, is equal.

Congress must hold some responsibility for the murders around the nation. If its members cannot agree to protect the nation’s youngest citizens who sit in classrooms eager to learn to read, count, and play team sports, then they can either sharpen their empathy skills and feel people’s pain or consider their time in public office as a failure.

Congress Must See the Wounds of the Dead and Suffering

How can Congress show a higher degree of responsibility – a heightened connection to people’s enduring pain – physical and psychological?  Look and remember!  Each day, they should begin their sessions looking at the actual photos of those shot – the wounded and killed.  They should learn about their injuries, urgent care, and rehabilitation.  Also, each purchase of an AR-15 should require liability insurance.  Where there is no economic impact, death becomes cheap. For almost certain, once insurance companies are paying out claims, something is likely to change.

With less than 5 percent of the world’s population, the US has almost 50 percent of the world’s civilian-owned guns. The US ranks number one in firearms per capita. Our nation also has the highest homicide-by-firearm rate among the world’s most developed nations. Forget the reasons used to explain-away mass shootings; at the scene of each of these horrific acts are often weapons of war.

Americans need patriotic public service advocates in Washington, DC, who place the survival of its citizens at the forefront of their efforts.  Weapons of war, such as AR-15s, have no place in people’s home arsenals. Its bullet’s caliber rips its target apart – going in small and exiting the size of a fist. Members of Congress and their staff must be required – regardless of their political party affiliation– to see the destructive path of an AR-15 caliber bullet after every mass shooting – see the faces and hear the screams of the families impacted until those cries echo in their heads.  They must identify with the continued horror the first responders will likely experience for years.

Years after my military service, I remember the faces of the wounded and dead. I remember stemming blood from their gunshot wounds.  I hear their voices calling for distant mothers or asking if they will die. What was training and instinct – the ability to separate from the swirl around me and perform under fire – now is a movie reel that plays in my head. 

I cherish life, my role as a healer, and now, my responsibilities as a health communicator. But each moment in harm’s way was never about policy; it was about survival. Now, we are all in harm’s way wherever we go. Congress, you must transcend your political differences and imagine the cries of children murdered, calling hopelessly beforehand for their parents unable to reach out. Ban assault weapons. Ban weapons of war.

[This post was originally published on July 22nd and has now been updated to reflect the recent shootings the continued lack of Federal government action to guard its citizens’ safety.]

The post If Deaths of Small Children Do Not Move Us to Action What Will? appeared first on Medika Life.