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Tag Archives: gun control

Making Noise With Silence

25 Feb

ART=AMMO

Times Square is all about sensory overload. Even during daylight the cacophony of lights and video are enough to give a person vertigo. Thousands of disoriented and staggering people whip their heads up & down and to & fro taking in any and everything. Advertisements flash and beckon from the sidewalk up to the sky. Spotting themselves on the jumbotron, visitors wave frantically to big brother. They squeal and scream in disharmony with ticket hawkers and coupon dealers. Underneath their sound is the white noise of traffic, preaching and ranting.

Yesterday the chaos of sound was silenced and the sight was undistracted for several minutes when a couple of hundred of us raised our hands in synchronicity and protest of gun violence. We held up our hands for 26 seconds, each second representing a victim in Newtown. Instantly the crowd was silenced. We slowly sank to the ground as our ‘partners’ held their hand over our hearts for 26 seconds, and then outlined our bodies in chalk. Lying on the ground, and hearing nothing, absolutely nothing was more realism than most of us bargained for. It was the subway rumbling underneath that reminded us to get up and chalk our partners’ body. We wrote inside the body outlines.; “Crisis” “Boy” “Joseph” “Glock” “Emilie age 6” and quickly dispersed. Making our way through the tour groups and Elmos we looked back. The ground was covered with chalk outlines in a chilling and strangely beautiful tableau. On the perimeter of the ‘performance space’ the assigned police officers still solemnly stood. Moments before the start time they had asked for their friend’s name to be chalked into an outline.

 

Thank you to ART=AMMO for organizing this event.

 
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Posted by on February 25, 2013 in Cultural Critique

 

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Having Vision

09 Feb

Lucy

“Background checks!” “Assault rifle ban!” “Mental Health Registry.” I can’t be the only person completely flummoxed by the latter of these gun control cries. There’s been plenty of chatter and innuendo but little if any real explanation as to what in the world is actually meant by a mental health registry. How will illness be identified and categorized? Is the inclusion of a mental health codicil simply a way of saying ‘a registry of people who have exhibited violent behavior in the past and had treatment.’? If so, that is quite the branding overreach. People who commit violent acts are by definition violent. People who harm strangers are not of sound mind. But neither are people who commit white-collar crimes.

Mental health and violence are only linked in terms of a one-way relationship: people who commit violent acts=unwell. But the vast majority of people who are unwell do not commit violence (to others anyway.) A glance through the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM) will (takes quite some time but) will result in concluding there is simply no single mental disorder commensurate with violence towards others. If we were to analyze mass murderers we may see similarities. They might have social phobias or a narcissistic personality, they may even have hallucinations. Those are three distinct disorders that are also symptoms of several other disorders. What of people with substance-related disorders? They very well may have induced psychotic disorder, or not. And all psychosis is not the same. Psychotic episodes rarely result in shooting up a pharmacy.

So what do we really mean when we talk about a mental health registry? Even if we scrape away the Pollyanna delusion that the majority of unwell people seek and obtain good mental health care, we are still left scratching our heads. Are we saying that mental health professionals need report when a patient vocalizes intended harm? That already is the case, so if that’s what we mean we should just stop talking about this. Will mental health professionals be asked to expand the reporting paradigm to include those patients they suspect will do harm? Even if that type of Ouija board, tea leaf reading were possible, we’d still be left with a tiny population of people who are on a path of violence and are actively seeking help. In this magical scenario where therapists with any and every kind of training and credentials can see into the future and place someone on a registry; what exactly is the goal? Perhaps (in this lollipop and unicorn made for T.V. scenario) a violence prone person will be prevented from buying a new gun. Fabulous, great. Does it prevent him or her from accessing their mother’s stockpile? Does it stop them from using the guns they already own?

Focusing on the mentally ill is very much needed in this country. People are suffering and need care. Those in a fragile state shouldn’t be expected to do battle with insurance companies or general practitioners. We need to stop whispering when we speak of mental health issues. There is nothing shameful about needing help; but there is much shame to be shared in turning our backs. It shouldn’t be challenging to find good help, it shouldn’t be financially out of reach either. The path towards help shouldn’t be so opaque that people have to ask, “where do I find a therapist.” Professionally staffed mental health clinics, offering consistent and continuing care should be as ubiquitous as LensCrafters. There is no shame in needing help; most everyone needs glasses at some point.

 
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Posted by on February 9, 2013 in Cultural Critique, Well-Being

 

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When Progress Falls Short

15 Jan

rail

New York State is passing new gun regulations. They are the first to do so after the 2012 Newtown (Connecticut) school shooting. The legislation will be lauded for its expanded ban on assault weapons and a broader definition of those weapons. The part of the legislation that will probably get the least attention the mention of mental illness. We seem to agree (subconsciously at least) that massacring innocent people is not the work of a sane individual. We also collectively agree that there are many many people struggling with their thoughts and feelings every single day. Most of us would agree that if we have a mental health system in this country to speak of, it is filled with holes and dead ends. So any legislation that even begins to address the mentally ill is a good thing, no?

Not when the legislation is a directive to mental health practitioners to report patients who are going to harm themselves and others, allowing the authorities to then remove guns from that patient’s home. Talk about your paper tigers! If people struggling with mental illness had access to a practitioner we’d have reason to celebrate! If mental health practitioners could predict who will cause harm we would be living in a very safe world indeed. A person is determined to be a danger to him/herself or others when the patient says that he or she is a danger to him/herself or others. So this ‘dangerous’ group is now a minute percentage of the actual group of potentially dangerous people. Now compound that with the fact that this new legislation might deter someone with any hint of paranoia or delusion from seeking mental health support. Add to that mess the fact that the shooting that prompted this legislation was done with weapons belonging to the murderer’s mother, not the man himself. You see how this might be more smoke than substance?

This could and should be the opportunity to decree that people haunted by their thoughts and impulses should not have to work so hard to get care. This is our chance to say that mental illnesses are complex and challenging to treat, but so is cancer and like cancer we need to go at it with everything we’ve got. Right now before the voices or the rage or the hopelessness cause a person to lash out on a subway platform, or slash someone on the street or shoot a toddler with a handgun or burn down a home; is when we should say that decent people do not allow this to continue. Decent people know that when we choose to not fight for those that need us most we forever must bear some responsibility for the consequences. Decency doesn’t allow for empty gestures or placating. There is no doubt that any restriction on guns is good for our country, and this legislation makes an impact on that goal. The public may very well applaud the creators of this legislation. There may be pats on the back and a nice sense of achievement. But at the end of the day the authors of this legislation know that they missed a golden opportunity to make real, humane and lasting change and may have stalled whatever building momentum there was to do so.

 
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Posted by on January 15, 2013 in Cultural Critique, Well-Being

 

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It’s All About We

20 Dec

me

Individual freedom is at an all-time high in our country. It’s actually been on the rise for quite sometime. You may be old enough to recall the ‘Me’ generation. Elders were alarmed to see the younger folk intone that ‘greed was good.’ There was hand wringing and prophesying that our nation was going to hell in a hand basket. Many of the beleaguered moaners had been genuine placard carrying protesters and sitter inners. “What means this ‘in it for me’?” the asked. How can those so young be so cynical they wondered? But in many ways this new generation was just a product of social evolution. Their values seemed alien on the surface, but at their core they were really quite familiar.

The individual and the declaration of his/her pursuit of happiness is as old as, well, as our nation. It’s what constitutes happiness that has changed over time. Our individual rights, many of them the result of hard won fights by protesters and sitter inners, have brought a new reality. One need only take a quick look around to see how we have changed our orientation to the larger world. It is not one single thing, but the mosaic of; S.U.V.s, double-wide strollers, texting while walking, driving or in religious service, grooming or performing personal hygiene in restaurants, standing in the doorway of the subway car, letting doors slam on faces and behinds, that lead us to consider that the individual now reigns supreme.

There is much to say for individualism of course. It is a sign of creativity and a self-actualized life to stay true to oneself. But there is tricky terrain to tread when we consistently choose our individual rights over the collective good. Legally we have the right to arm our entire family and ourselves as if the British are coming. We also have the legal right to shelter our children from public services and mental health care. Do either of these individual rights benefit society in any way?

Legal rights are designed for the betterment of society. They reflect our collective ideals and values. Is enacting law a panacea? No, but it’s a start. It’s true that seat belt laws don’t make good drivers, but they might just protect you from the bad ones. What car laws do (and we have many of them) is say; “No, your individual rights cannot infringe upon the rights of others.” All reasonable people can agree that in fact that is where we draw the line.

No, you may not own any and every kind of gun you desire because doing so infringes upon the rights of others. No, you may not deny your child care and support because doing so infringes upon (his/her and the) rights of others. We must collectively provide such care and support with a fervor. We must remove the stigmas and euphemisms surrounding mental illness. We must agree that the only shame in any illness is that of a culture that doesn’t care. If we care, we must find a way to move on from the ‘Me’ and towards the ‘We.”

 
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Posted by on December 20, 2012 in Childhood, Cultural Critique, Well-Being

 

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Stopping The Madness

17 Dec

trucks

When real news occurs technology and 24-hour access is a blessing. By patching together information from responsible radio sources, social chatter, and television visuals, we are able to piece together a reliable narrative. Our data gathering is confirmed and/or tweaked by the next morning’s newspaper. But when there is no more news, when we know what there is to know, the coverage still continues. The cameras and the microphone-wielding reporters scramble to create news after the fact.

Mobs of coffee swilling, logo wearing news personnel pass the time texting and chatting, waiting for a passerby to descend upon. They are rewarded for their perseverance by the person who desires to be photographed/interviewed. We could spend hours working out why anyone would want to place flowers on the ground while a swarm of dozens of camera people hover over one’s head. Perhaps it’s a similar motivation to wanting to go on record with “I didn’t really know him, he seemed different.” It’s odd but it is human nature to want to be part of something bigger.

But do we gain anything from the vulgar intrusion into people’s lives and the manufacturing of ‘news?’ The real events are usually horrific enough. No one need look for more horror. Every ‘expert’ frantically grabbed for a soundbite can pontificate from the news desk. If there is still news to come out of local offices, a reporter can be there and file the report the information. On-site cameras are not needed to report medical examiner reports or investigative results. Beside the stomach-turning element to covering mourning and grief is the danger of anesthetizing the public. While we don’t want to live in a state of perpetual sorrow, we most certainly don’t want to find ourselves numb and/or nonchalant about such horrific events. What is almost unthinkable is how the non-stop coverage can actually lead to more tragedy.

We can’t begin to ever really know what goes on in someone else’s mind. But we can look for clues and make educated guesses and predictions. A person ill at ease in the world, unable to connect with other people can retreat into a very dark world. If someone feels that they will never be able to be an active participant in life can look for ways to make their mark in death. No, it is not a simple equation and it by no means suggests that all socially awkward people retreat into darkness. But people who feel part of the world and valued by others wouldn’t look for ways to enact revenge on their path to death.

While there is no way to overstate that the time is now to rid our nation of guns and take mental illness seriously, it is also time to stop the media circus. Right now there is some compromised person watching this coverage and thinking of a way to become even more famous. The fact that I’m saying it doesn’t make it true, the fact that you feel it too, does.

 
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Posted by on December 17, 2012 in Cultural Critique, Media/Marketing

 

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