Another cop out on gun control
DONALD Trump’s response to the latest shooting in Texas where he cited mental health as the issue at play as opposed to gun control has occupied my thoughts of late.
For the record, I am not an advocate of firearms. In fact I would find it very uncomfortable to live in a culture where I, my neighbours, my work colleagues or my kids could access guns easily. Indeed I am grateful to live in a country that owns one of Europe’s least permissive legislations on gun ownership.
However what happened in a small-town church in Texas had more to do with the violent behaviour of an individual as opposed to his access to weapons. Absolutely his weaponry made his crime more deadly and devastating but he was on a murderous track regardless.
From reports we learn that the perpetrator had a long history of disturbing behaviour that resulted in him being discharged from the Air Force. How that did not prevent him from buying a semi-automatic rifle to kill 25 people and an unborn child is something for the pro-gun lobby group to think long and hard about.
Yet Trump’s tightly packaged summation that mental health is “your problem here” is a cop out of a response. These all too frequent shootings evidence the unpredictability of the perpetrators. It is near impossible to predict the future actions of an individual and a diagnosis of mental illness is not an indicator; many people suffer in their mental health but they do not shoot up, maim and kill people on the back of it. Indeed this type of association only goes to discriminate sufferers and stigmatise mental illness even more.
A history of violent behaviour in an individual is a stronger indicator to future violence and usually that history has root in being a victim of violence in childhood, substance abuse or “normalised” violence in their environment. Some, including Trump, might mix that up with mental illness. Mental illness may well increase the likelihood of committing violence in some individuals but studies show that only a small part of violence in society can be attributed to mental health patients.
We see time and again emotive celebrity responses to these atrocities and it is a pity that it takes ugly events like Texas and Las Vegas for mental health to be discussed at this level. Invariably their conclusions stereotype and imply that someone must be mentally ill to commit such evil. If that is the logic, then why then aren’t governments presiding over mass massacres and ethnic cleansing cited as mentally ill? Is it because that type of murder is systematic as opposed to random?
You don’t have to be insane to do bad things. We cannot pick and choose the term “mentally ill” to suit our own reconciliation of events. To do so is to further isolate the isolated, internalise what should be shared and to burden further mental health sufferers who by the way are as traumatised, shocked and sickened by these senseless killings as everyone else.