Health Beat: It’s Time to Start Screening for Mental Illness
We put up with all kinds of security measures in the interest of public safety. Mental illness can also kill us, if the afflicted are allowed to have weapons.
The Oregon shootings have once again brought the heated topic of to the forefront.
Should gun control legislation be proposed again? How can someone who legally obtained guns be stopped before going on a crime spree?
Overall, gun violence in America is actually declining, but massacres such as the one last week in Roseburg, Oregon, are not.
Limiting access to guns would help, and doing more thorough background checks might identify those who should not be allowed to purchase a weapon. But听changing the landscape of who can obtain a gun is a very difficult task, one President Obama has admitted has been .
However you feel about gun control, it’s hard to argue this point: Attacks such as the one that resulted in 10 deaths at Umpqua Community College are about more than just guns.
In almost every mass shooting, the assailant is found to have a mental health problem. Retrospectively, friends, family, coworkers, colleagues, or former teachers look back and say things like 鈥渉e always seemed a little odd,鈥 or 鈥渉e was a loner who always kept to himself and didn鈥檛 seem to socialize with anyone.鈥
Some even go so far as to say that they were scared of the person.
According to the FBI, 93 percent of such attackers engaged in some type of behavior before the shootings that made others concerned.
There is a : Males fascinated by depictions of violence, whether it be from video games, movies or actual news from around the world. Many are victims of bullying, or other forms of harassment. Almost all plan听their attacks.
Although not all shooters have been diagnosed with a mental illness, psychologically, there has to be something wrong.
Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook School shooter, killed his mother before embarking on his killing spree. He was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder, anxiety and other听untreated medical and psychological problems. These were directly linked to his deadly attack.
It鈥檚 time to look at gun deaths as a public health emergency.
Seat belts, fences around pools,听minimum drinking ages and听mandatory safety standards have been established to prevent deaths in many other areas. We need to place the same emphasis on finding ways to decrease the chances of guns getting in the hands of the mentally ill, or any weapons for that matter.
To do so, we have to be able to reach out to those who have mental health issues, before it鈥檚 too late.
We routinely require vaccinations in order to enter school, what about requiring periodic mental health checkups for those entering middle school, high school, college, and beyond? Trained professionals can evaluate people听to see if they have mental health needs to be addressed. Instead of retrospectively asking survivors if they knew something was wrong with the shooter, we might see earlier identification and help for those who could put the rest of society at risk.
After all, studies have shown .
Educational class assemblies and anonymous reporting systems help alert school officials if someone is contemplating a violent attack. According to the FBI,听 in 80 percent 听of school shootings, someone else knew the attacker was planning the event.
We also need a legal avenue to pursue investigations when something is reported without waiting for a violent act to occur.
From a public health perspective, it鈥檚 worth the potential risk of subjecting those entering our schools to a mental health check-up by a certified professional. Everyone benefits.
Some may think it鈥檚 an invasion of their privacy, but have you been to the airport recently? After one failed attempt at a shoe bomb in 2001, we now all take our shoes off at the airport. We also go through scanners, have people search our luggage, pat us down physically 鈥 everyone puts up with it, not just because it鈥檚 mandatory but because no one wants to be on a plane with someone who is carrying something dangerous.
Another way to treat gun violence as a public health emergency would be to allow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study it, something that .
We’re all at risk when a mentally ill person picks up a weapon. So it should be screened for, and in combination with that we need to provide the medical personnel necessary to treat those who need psychological care.
We the taxpayers are going to have to pay for this. But if we make it a priority, and make it mandatory, we might just catch more potential shooters before they pull the trigger.
No, it won鈥檛 prevent every act of violence in our schools and elsewhere, but with the death toll rising, it definitely seems worth the extra effort.
