America is ill

Parents in America have long been saying a silent prayer when they drop their kid off at school every morning. We have gotten numb to the almost daily trickle of news of shootings in schools, malls, movie theaters, places of work and worship and where everyday life happens. To add to these, hoaxes and pranks gone-too-far have only added to our sense of anxiety and insecurity, and parents have been living on the edge.

This weekend, the specter of violence just got closer to home with one more act of insanity at a mall some of us have visited numerous times. As news was still pouring in from various sources, there was another lockdown at a different mall in the area where members of my own family were attending a simple concert. There was panic and chaos abound to say the least. While this latter incident turned out to be a false alarm with no real threat detected, the former was not. Eight more people lost their lives in this mindless act of violence along with several injured, some in critical condition.

Fear and paranoia have now become a staple of our daily existence. While politicians will predictably come out on both sides of this issue and rattle off their talking points, it's we the people that elected each one of them to act (or not) for us. Wherever we might be in the political spectrum on this issue, we can probably agree America is having an illness. An illness that is the single largest cause of death for children, ages 1-19. An illness that causes us to reach out for the gun before we respond to the door when a stranger knocks. An illness that puts our need for speed in hunting over concern for the life of those dead or forever maimed by these incidents, not to mention the trauma. An illness that spews the fear that all guns will be confiscated only to abet the proliferation of more guns, when there is zero real threat to safe gun ownership in any part of this country. An illness that makes us hateful and fearful of our own government when in reality, all major acts of violence in this country have been perpetrated by our people against our own people, at least since the horrendous attack on 9/11.

Mental health is often cited as the factor behind the acts of many of these perpetrators. There is no doubt there is some aspect of mental illness that makes us fearful or hateful of others - we humans were not designed to kill other humans for survival. Mental illness should not be a taboo either for the society or in healthcare - we should make access to its diagnosis and treatment easier and affordable. But beyond the mental health issues of these perpetrators, is it time for us to look deeper into the broader illness that is pervading all of America? Acceptance is the first step to confronting and curing any illness. Thoughts and prayers can only take us so far because as they say, God helps those who help themselves.