Thursday, April 3, 2014

Fort Hood...all over again.....

I am writing this the day after the most recent shooting at Ft. Hood.  A soldier working out of Ft. Hood opened fire on his fellow service members.  Three are dead.   Eight are injured.  The gun was a weapon bought privately and legally.  The shooter shot himself and died.  This was not a service weapon.  The shooter was apparently living with anxiety and depression.  He probably had not yet diagnosed PTSD. (It takes time to formally diagnose it, apparently.). Was he in treatment?  Supposedly.  But it is also being said that he wasn't currently being treated.  He got the gun recently from a gun shop.  Did he have a criminal background?  Was there a background check?  Were the mental health professionals treating this man aware that he was dangerous?  How come we haven't dealt with the issue of reasonable gun control?

I find it incredible that we haven't dealt with the realities of gun violence in this country.  I find it disgusting that we haven't dealt with the gaping service holes serving our mentally ill.  We aren't even  convinced as a society that healthcare is a right.  Witness the gyrations that the Republican party is going through to get rid of  'ObamaCare' instead of improving the healthcare system.  I have said many times in this blog that access and effective healthcare is necessary to deal with the ways that mental illness is influencing our lives.  One in four in this country live with some level of mental illness.  The mentally ill are filling jails and prisons.  Homelessness and mental illness are linked. And, now, we have had another shooting at Ft. Hood.  Putting your head in the sand doesn't solve the problems.

You tell me...what should be done about the numbers of people dying through gun violence in this country?  What should we change?  How can we make all people safer?  Or are you simply fatalistic? Let me know what you think.  To simply turn your head away is wrong.

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