Blaming Uvalde on lack of mental health services is a deflection needing serious correction

As expected, most in the GOP, but not all,  and Abbott in the thrall of the NRA and anti sensible gun law fanatics, blamed the lack of mental health care for Uvalde. The two Texas Senators, however, differed. Cruz rails against gun regulation while Cornyn leads GOP in negotiations | The Texas Tribune  Gov. Abbott had just cut $211 million in funding for mental health in Texas before the mass shooting, as well. What a two-faced pol he is.  Blaming the lack of mental health services and cutting funding for such services is standard practice for those politicians in denial of their responsibilities, a ruse, a tactic, a ploy, a tool,  to deflect any consideration from sensible gun laws. It is like wallpapering over a stained rotten wall. It makes it look better but does little to fix the real problem.  Better mental health services is always a good thing, but it is not an honest answer in this case.  Here is why. Excerpts  from my prior postings:  Also see a prior post:https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2022/05/i-am-sick-and-tired-of-gun-lobby.html

May 25, 2022 Better mental health services mean little without red flag laws and even then,  it is iffy. Over the past years, I have written columns after Columbine, Aurora, and other mass killings.  That professionals can spot a future mass killer assumes the killer even had visited a mental health professional, but when they do, there is a 50-50 chance even a trained pro can predict the patient will act out.  Even then,  what motivates a mass killer may not be an identified diagnosis.  That 18-year-olds have a record of prior violence or a visit to a psychologist is rare.  Uncontrolled anger is technically not a mental health disease, so red flag laws need to be broader than just a diagnosis of paranoia or some other formal diagnosis of a recognized illness.  Those of us who have had to raise teenagers also know that even after 18 years old, few can control themselves and avoid risky behavior.. Their brains, especially young males, have not matured yet to be wired to be rational. The assumption needs to be all under 21 are a potential risk.  At the minimum, if there is no ban of assault-type weapons of war, the age should be raised to 21.  Some states have done that, but a neighboring state may not which is why the approach needs to be federal.  If such laws had been in effect in Texas, chances are Uvalde would not have happened since the shooter was just 18, no red flags, and no record of a personality out of control that we know of so far.  

In a 2012 posting:

in the wake of the Aurora Colorado theatre shooting, the shooter had been under the care of a psychiatrist who did flag him, but restrictions kept anyone from acting. My psychologist friends (I am a supporter of mental health system improvements and access to counseling through a faith-based organization) tell me even then they have only a 50-50 chance of predicting which of their patients will carry out mass shootings or kill someone. Mental health is a factor, but in courts of law, the insanity plea is rarely successful. Should we improve our mental health services? Yes. Every little bit will help, but it is not a panacea or even a major deterrent. Without red flag laws permitting reporting of people may be a threat and without universal background checks, improved mental health access still hamstrings the ability for mental health professionals to prevent mass killings.

http://bigthink.com/risk-reason-and-reality/the-supreme-court-ruling-on-the-2nd-amendment-did-not-grant-an-unlimited-right-to-own-guns

Abbott blames 'mental health' for Uvalde shooting after cutting $211 million from mental health agency | Texas News | San Antonio | San Antonio Current (sacurrent.com)

"https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/anger-isnt-a-mental-illness-but-we-should-still-treat-it.html
Is mental health the cause of mass killings? The writer of this post gives us some important food for thought. From this psychologist'.s viewpoint, the motivation is uncontrolled anger ...rarely an underlying mental illness. This supports an argument of why we need red flag laws and background checks as part of sensible gun legislation. However, the solution she suggests goes far beyond any legislation discussed today...it is teaching young people anger management and the tools are there...even in Colorado, which she holds up as one model.

https://www.denverpost.com/2019/08/05/red-flag-gun-laws-trump-colorado/

Rephrasing the advocacy message means avoiding political science jargon

Better messaging is needed on terms like gerrymandering, vote stealing, fair and free elections, and other political science and legal terms. Plain English would help. 

Have you noticed that both public officials and journalists tend to get into a rut using one or two technical words to substitute for common English?  They wrongly make the assumption that audiences will understand how it will affect them, It is particularly a problem when abstract political science concepts are at issue. Often foul is called if a rule or law is broken, but that requires a brief legal case to be made instead of a sound bite. Frequently the point gets lost in the weeds of technical legal Iand hair-splitting definitions. Just claiming something is undemocratic is also too vague.   For better advocacy,. there are some terms that can be retooled by walking in the shoes of the audience and helping them understand how it affects them. The operative alternative word to "against the law" is being " fair", because most people like to think they are fair or want to be treated fairly as others are treated.  What the bad guys are doing may be fair to themselves, but not to anyone else.    It might need a short phrase to explain it, or even simply ditching the jargon word and replacing it with a plain English phrase.   "Fair and free elections" could be "counting your vote the same way as all others are counted". Basically," the the bad guys do not want so many votes opposing their opponents to be counted or even cast." " Fair is not their goal; winning if losing is".   Elections are " stolen" when all votes are not counted. Elections can be called " unfair if who controls the counting is one party or one candidate ". .   The term "voter suppression",  assumes you get the point, and the bad guys are those who do not want you to vote. . If you are a victim of it, you get it, but if you are not, why should you care?.  It might be called "making it harder (more inconvenient, more expensive) for certain people to vote for the candidate they want"  "Gerrymander" is another jargon word, as well.  Voters may think it is a bad thing, but how it affects them is not very clear..  .  For "gerrymander", an explanatory phrase would be"drawing district boundaries to reduce the numbers of certain targeted peoples'  representatives in government".  

The subpoints of example to illustrate the unfairness of elections can follow the plain English phrase  with examples, and relate them to "fairness".  For example, removing ballot drop boxes for mail in votes and in person polling places from areas you suspect will vote for your opponent is not fair.  Locking up paper ballots or counting machines so only candidate loyalists and supporters can do the counting is not fair.   Those may be good examples of voter suppression, but they are above all not fair. Giving rural areas with lower population or one racial group than urban ones with another racial group more representative districts in the legislature is gerrymandering and unfair. Those practices may break the law or may not, but they are unfair.  

 There is an old preacher rhetorical trick that works well, too. First you tell them what you are saying, then you make your point with examples , and then close with a word of what you said. Here is how it could uld done in a short comment in plain English:: "It isn't fair for just my opponent's loyalists to count the votes. True story: A clerk in Colorado locked away the paper ballots and the vote tabulators in a room so only those loyal to her candidates could count them. Not only did that break the law and the rules, that is not a fair election that makes sure are votes are counted and no elections are stolen." .   Another sound bite:",An equal ability for all to vote is fair. True story in another state: Polling places and mail in ballots drop boxes were removed from precincts expected to vote for an opponent, but not in precincts expected to vote for another candidate.  That is  called voter suppression, but it isn't fair.  Drawing district lines to favor one party and to give them more representatives in the legislature than another party is not fair. True story in Colorado: An opponent running against the governor wants to change district boundaries to the legislature so that all urban counties with most votes  are put in one district and rural ones with few voters are divided up into more districts.  That may or may not violate a law, but it is not fair. 

Buffalo and Uvalde blew gun lobby reasons to oppose sensible gun laws out of the water..

A related issue of mental healthBuffalo and Uvalde  blew gun lobby reasons to oppose sensible gun laws out of the water..

Updated: June 3, 2022  _124122934_gun_related_crimes_640-2x-nc_updated.png (976×764) (bbci.co.uk)      The US has got twice the gun crime rate as others like us.  This  BBC site is a treasure trove of data  from non-biased sources.

Updated 6/2/22 I  am sick and tired of the gun lobby's reasons to oppose sensible gun laws.  In a Facebook dialog in response to the recent mass shootings in Buffalo and Texas,, and now Tulsa. I got a  typical and nonsensical response to any attempt to fix the problem. " OK, so it was bad but what about Chicago?" Give me a break. Both are bad. The other," the way to deal with bad guys with guns, is to give good guys more guns."  When it comes to many good guys with a pistol, they are outgunned by one with a AR 15 and in body armor.. Give me a break. Another BS "argument: pass what you'd call sensible gun legislation, and the next thing you know the government will take your guns away from you". Colorado and Connecticut passed sensible gun laws and my friends and I still have our guns. Give me a break  Cooling off periods? That may have slowed down the Tulsa killer who bought his AR 15 2 hours before his rampage? "Selling weapons of war to those under 21? That would have stopped the '18-year-old Uvalde killer. "It is all a mental health problem so fix that and all will be fine".  That one assumes much, but so many of the killers had no red flags. Either they were too young or confided in a few or they were not taken seriously and if there were, there were no red flag laws and mechanisms to stop a purchase.   Another responder to a cartoon posted by a friend that showed 19 kids and two teachers at St Peter's gate with an anti-gun message expressed outrage that someone would dare make such an event a political one. Excuse me:.  I replied: .." It is a political issue because the solution lies with the government. ...and politicians have the power to regulate access to civilian use of war weapons. Otherwise, why does the NRA finance so many politicians' campaigns? They know it and you do too. " 

On May 27, I heard a really stupid argument from those who should know better but who want to discuss anything but gun control, one door entry exit for schools:.. Ted Cruz, a Senator prized for his intelligence and education, flat advocated it again and again.. Ted Cruz should have known better.  Here is my May  27 Facebook posting and Cruz's continued advocacy for the one-door stupidity.

One suggestion being made in the case of Uvalde is to have one exit and entry in a school and lock it. Not sure how that works in a multibuilding campus, but certainly having one exit is a stupid idea. Imagine 500 kids running to one door in the case of a fire, tornado, and a shooter with an AR15. ( An elementary school teacher (I know )having trained for shelter in place in the case of an active shooter knows that there must be another way. An elementary school in the Columbine school area(years after the infamous high school incident) had outside doors in some of the classrooms and in another school, all rooms had escape doors. Ironically, her own daughter had to shelter in place in a school shooting incident and it took an hour and more before her classroom "was cleared". The shooter was in the next room and had shot himself. Fortunately, he was not armed with a wall-busting AR15,, but a shotgun. After that experience, she resolved if there was an emergency door to the outside,, and in an upper elementary grade level was inside, she would tell the students to scatter and run like hell. .Not every school can have a door to the outside, but it is instructive of the importance of multiple exits. (A quick reply from someone who read this is that no fire marshal would ever ok the one entry/exit approach anyway).

Sen. Ted Cruz proposes one door entry at TX schools, safety experts say it's not feasible | KEYE (cbsaustin.com)

One-door schoolhouses not credible solution, officials and experts say | The Texas Tribune

My response to the Chicago gang violence deflective issue posed by a Facebook responder was this:  

Typical "what about".." deflective issue and answer. . Don't look at that tree, look at this one..So. two wrongs make a right.? Both are connected by one thing: it is easy to get an AR 15 whether you are a gang member or a kid gone loco...but two different sociological circumstances at work and the kinds of victims. are different as well. The best answer is fix them both and the common tie that binds are the availability to those who want to kill with weapons of war..If Uvaldi showed anything, good guys with guns are outgunned...another useless answer. Another stupid deflective answer: institute common sense gun laws and the next thing, the government will take away your guns. Yeh, slippery sloper. Do like we did in Colorado and in Connecticut. Did your guns get taken away from you?

• 9 questions about gun laws in Colorado, answered | Colorado Public Radio (cpr.org)

 "Voters in the state chose to close the so-called ‘gun show loophole’ after the Columbine massacre in 1999, requiring background checks for purchases at trade shows.

More recent gun laws in the Colorado were embraced by Pres. Biden in an address to the nation  June 2. 2022.   Full Transcript: Biden’s Speech on Gun Control - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

• Universal background checks for all sales, including private sales.
• A ban on magazines that hold more than 15 rounds.
• Restrictions on gun ownership for certain domestic violence offenders.
• A Red Flag Law that allows a family member or law enforcement to petition a court to temporarily remove someone’s firearms if they’re deemed a danger to themselves or others. These are known as Extreme Risk Protection Orders.
• A requirement that gun owners securely store their firearms when not in use.
• A requirement that gun owners report to law enforcement any lost or stolen weapons.
• Allowing cities and counties to pass stricter gun laws than the state.
• Preventing people convicted of certain violent misdemeanors from buying a gun for five years.
• Closing the so-called ‘Charleston loophole’ that allowed gun dealers to finish a transaction without a background check if the check wasn’t completed in three days.
• The ‘Vote Without Fear Act,’ which bars the open carry of firearms within 100 feet of a polling location.
• Creating an Office of Gun Violence Prevention."

 Per Wikipedia:Gun laws in Connecticut regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Gun laws in Connecticut are amongst the most restrictive in the country. Connecticut requires training, background check and permitting requirements for the purchase of firearms and ammunition; and a ban (with exceptions) on certain semi-automatic firearms defined as "assault weapons" and magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds. Connecticut's licensing system for open and concealed carry is relatively permissive.

Memorial day musing; Land of the (somewhat) free for which so many died?

I listened to a country star sing the Star Bangled Banner at the opening of a sports event this Memorial Day weekend, and the line"home of the free " caused me to give an ironic pause.  is this the land of the free for which so many died?  Are those who define the word meaning it as it was in May 2022 or, as I fear,  are we in danger of regressing to times before the American Revolution, the writing of the Constitution, the 1930s or 1950s, and 60s? I have always wondered to which era do those who want to make America great again revert. If "free" means keeping government out of your private lives, so you have the liberty to pursue your own happiness and life,  our own historical roots had their limits, It may mean free from some other country's domination, but if it refers to those living here, freedom was a relative matter. Who was free when our country was founded were white males. Freedom was for them, but not for everyone. It did not mean freedom from being a slave and owned by someone, until after the Civil War and even then until subsequent Constitution amendments. was there even a standard set by law that sometimes was enforced,  Women were seen, but not often heard. Many had struggled hard to gain freedoms they believed were their inalienable rights. 

There were many who found their voices with their own definitions of freedom in the Trump years. To some of the Trump supporters, freedom means to them to bygone eras means rolling back those freedoms to days of the monarchy before the American revolution when freedom was only for the rulers and their loyalists. .These are those who lust to Make America Great Again by restoring the governance of the autocrats and dictators and the post cold war era, Putin, to Orban to Erdogan. These regressionists would take us back to the one-man rulers like those of the 1930s, where freedom of the press for even dissidents to express themselves and peaceful protests were and are not allowed. Rule of law was then as now as the dictator said it was to be interpreted, and freedom of religion was limited to those who practiced and observed the state-sponsored clerics or the leader's preferred pontiff. Civil rights were and are a thing of the past, the judiciary and legislative bodies were and are comprised of loyalists to the ruler. because elections were or are neither free nor fair.   They controlled and control who votes how they vote, and the media messages they can receive to shape their opinions.

 Much changed in the era of Trump after years of progress for minorities. Under the assumption that minorities would not vote his way and were inherently corrupt, counting their vote meant putting up barriers to jump that others not living in the same neighborhood did not have to hurdle. Vote counting was legitimate if it was done by those swearing allegiance to Trump, but not to the Constitution. These tactics which white majorities used were weapons in the disguise of democracy,  such as of gerrymandering to limit legislative representatives for certain groups and making a trip to a voting place to cast votes as difficult as possible for the targeted racial demographic. Votes by minorities were assumed to be possible thefts that needed to be scrutinized, unlike those who lived in areas that were mostly while and lived in the old south and rural areas. After nearly two years, no evidence of that assumption has emerged that would have changed the results of the 2020 election, and those prosecuted for Jan. 6 violence and voter fraud are nearly always white.   Old prejudices die hard. These regressives want all but themselves to return to the limited rights of the1950s.  

 For women, the freedom to pursue happiness and life in current economic conditions depends on their ability to work and to plan their pregnancies, whether by birth control or by "choice" of whether to continue a pregnancy. The latter freedom for individuals to make such decisions is likely being taken away from them by 24 state governments. The carefully strategized and cagily packaged lie with "Roe v Wade is settled law" convinced others to go along and they were surprised that the  Supreme Court was guaranteed to be majority"pro-life." after all. It is now a threat with the greatest government interference in a person's private life possible,  making abortion illegal, and even for the most fanatics already planning to take away birth control access next. Life for these most radical begins at inception, no matter by whom, rapists, a close relative, a family dependent of a two-income family, or a single person attempting to be independent and not on welfare. Even mothers could be the ones to die from childbirth, leaving families motherless for the raising of the orphaned sibling survivors. Not only that, those forces bent on taking away those freedoms are the same who refuse to vote for child tax credits, food stamps, child care, and health care supplied even partly by the government.   Pro-life concerns stop at childbirth. After that, poor mom and child,  you are on your own. Good luck. Thanks to these regressive fanatics, it is back to the good ole bad days of the 1950s. and the 1960s when abortions were still practiced and women died from botched practices or families grew in size and in unsustained poverty. 

Why making mental health better, gun advocates' solution. is not enough

In trospect, better mental health services mean little without red flag laws and even then,  it is iffy. Over the past years, I have written columns after Columbine, Aurora, and other mass killings.  That professionals can spot a future mass killer assumes the killer even had visited a mental health professional, but when they do, there is a 50-50 chance even a trained pro can predict the patient will act out.  Even then,  what motivates a mass killer may not be an identified diagnosis.  Uncontrolled anger is technically not a mental health disease, so red flag laws need to be broader than just a diagnosis of paranoia or some other formal diagnosis of a recognized illness.  Those of us who have had to raise teenagers also know that even after 18 years old, few can control themselves and avoid risky behavior.. Their brains, especially young males, have not matured yet to be wired to be rational. The assumption needs to be all under 21 are a potential risk.  At the minimum, if there is no ban of assault-type weapons of war, the age should be raised to 21.  Some states have done that, but a neighboring state may not which is why the approach needs to be federal.  If such laws had been in effect in Texas, chances are Uvalde would not have happened since the shooter was just 18, no red flags, and no record of a personality out of control that we know of so far.   I am reproducing an excerpt below from one of those columns and references to sources coloring my opinions. 

in the wake of the Aurora Colorado theatre shooting, the shooter had been under the care of a psychiatrist who did flag him, but restrictions kept anyone from acting. My psychologist friends (I am a supporter of mental health system improvements and access to counseling through a faith-based organization) tell me even then they have only a 50-50 chance of predicting which of their patients will carry out mass shootings or kill someone. Mental health is a factor, but in courts of law, the insanity plea is rarely successful. Should we improve our mental health services? Yes. Every little bit will help, but it is not a panacea or even a major deterrent. Without red flag laws permitting reporting of people may be a threat and without universal background checks, improved mental health access still hamstrings the ability for mental health professionals to prevent mass killings.

http://bigthink.com/risk-reason-and-reality/the-supreme-court-ruling-on-the-2nd-amendment-did-not-grant-an-unlimited-right-to-own-guns

"https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/anger-isnt-a-mental-illness-but-we-should-still-treat-it.html
Is mental health the cause of mass killings? The writer of this post gives us some important food for thought. From this psychologist'.s viewpoint, the motivation is uncontrolled anger ...rarely an underlying mental illness. This supports an argument of why we need red flag laws and background checks as part of sensible gun legislation. However, the solution she suggests goes far beyond any legislation discussed today...it is teaching young people anger management and the tools are there...even in Colorado, which she holds up as one model.

https://www.denverpost.com/2019/08/05/red-flag-gun-laws-trump-colorado/

On yesterday's school shooting; it is a political issue and it should be

 On the shooting in Uvalde, Texas: Yes, this is a political issue, it should be because politicians can help fix it. Ban the sale of assault weapons and large magazines or whatever you call these weapons of war. Give school administrators the ability to intervene when the red flags are raised. . That speaks to how one gunman can kill masses of people. in a matter of minutes ...and whole classrooms and their teachers. It is also why arming teachers and police resource officers and law enforcement officers are outgunned and have to use war tactics to bring them down. We have banned the sale of combat weapons before. We can do it again. I am a gun owner, but .. I could be that grandmother in Buffalo, and the grandmother of yesterday's shooter. I am the mother of a teacher of an upper elementary teacher who herself is the mother of a survivor of a local school shooting, and both mother and daughter have spent a matter of years recovering from the mental health damage. Her daughter sheltered in a cloakroom closet for hours until her room was cleared..as the gunman took his life in the next classroom. He, a fellow student she knew well, did not have weapons of war, only a legally bought shotgun, but "only two died", not 10 nor 20.. The shooter had already been flagged as a potential threat by his school authorities, but they did nothing to prevent it. (The school district was successfully sued) I am the grandmother of a grandson, a 4th grader, who cowered under his desk for hours in a school near Sandy Hook. I live in two communities, one is urban and of which gave the name of infamy to Columbine and Aurora movie carnage. The other, rural community where shotguns are a matter of necessity, but hunting and protection from wildlife are not done by weapons of war. Each mass shooting becomes the blueprint for the next mass killer, and they learn how to become more deadly. Stop this insanity now.

https://www.coloradopolitics.com/elections/2022/heartbroken-colorado-officials-candidates-react-to-massacre-at-texas-elementary-school/article_03281f4c-dbcc-11ec-a4f1-b33a5486a4ff.html

Joe Biden on Uvalde, Texas school shooting: full speech (statesman.com)

Colorado, the birth mother of mass shootings, Columbine, Aurora theatre, and the most recent one in a Boulder supermarket, is where politicians have taken the responsibility to do something about it. What a contrast is Gov. Polis to Gov. Abbott of Texas. Abbott called his political opponent SOB for demanding he take action in the wake of Uvalde.. Polis signed precisely the kind of legislation Abbott refuses to support.

COLORADOPOLITICS.COM

Polis signs three gun bills introduced after the Boulder King Soopers mass shooting

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