More people in Colorado and elsewhere are buying guns because A. They’re not nuts and B. They don’t want to get hurt by one. People debate the gun issue until they’re blue in the face, but between liberals (civil rights, funding) and conservatives (civil rights, funding) – no one wants to do anything about the considerable number of disturbed people on the streets, in schools, etc. In America, apparently, you have the right to slide into madness – and stay that way – until you do something illegal, or worse. No one gives a damn, and if even they did, there’s nothing to do about it. Hell, we all now know, for example, that there are thousands of returning veterans — our finest Americans — with PTSD. People trained to handle firearms in stressful situations having a difficult time admitting they need treatment, being identified as needing treatment, or getting treatment. I think of the suicide rates that the military obviously doesn’t want you to remember; I think of the veteran who recently had a non-lethal, but prolonged gun battle with police and firefighters because he thought they were the enemy coming to get him. Obviously needs treatment. Where is he? In jail. Not getting treatment. If we can’t handle even the most obvious mental health care crises, this country is never going to be able to address the lurking time bombs like the Aurora killer before they explode. Shotgun, assault weapon… they’re damn lucky that he didn’t bring in two suitcases of homemade explosives.
This is all part of the larger national health care crisis, and America’s ongoing need to splinter itself to death, to die of a thousand cuts while the One Percent collects the blood. It would be so nice, so civilized, if enough Americans decided their asses were sore enough, to end the medical/insurance industry’s 40-year racket-rape of the American people. We need to find the courage and decency to de-stigmatize mental illness and emotional struggles, and provide people who feel like they’re descending down a rabbit hole a means of getting help, of talking to someone. The country needs to have some sort of system where people who are obviously in need of help get what they need- whether they want it or not. I’m not talking about Salem witch hunts or people dropping a dime on their enemies at work. There’s no reason for madmen to be roaming the streets, or upset people roaming the streets homeless and hungry until they become mad. We need to provide pressure release valves for people; we need to know our neighbors better. And for the neighbors we don’t know, we need to have the open eyes and common sense it takes to notice that something isn’t quite right next door – and have a number to call. This Aurora killer fills his apartment with explosives and all sorts of weird stuff, and no one notices? No one apparently cared enough to notice.
We need to do this not just to prevent tragedies, but to improve the standard of living here. Obviously. We need to do this before we become even more splintered as a nation – and we will become much, much more fragmented; that’s as certain as death and taxes.
