Gun Control and Mental Health
Charles Wolfe
CEO at Charles J. Wolfe Associates, LLC Results Driven Firm based on an Emotionally Intelligent Approach to Leadership
There is much confusion about the role of mental health in containing gun violence. For most people anyone that would shoot at strangers is "crazy". However in the definitions of types of mental illness some of these people would be defined as mentally ill while others would not. There are mentally ill people who also are not prone to gun violence. In some of the newer red flag laws that state that guns can be taken from people via due process, the target are people who are considered potentially harmful to themselves or others. They may or may not be defined as mentally ill, but they are considered dangerous.
Some people are advocating to the return to the institutionalization of mentally ill people. We certainly have men and women, many of them veterans who are living on the streets and are experiencing various forms of mental illness. Whether these people are dangerous it is hard to know without contact with them as individuals. To deal with both these issues I offer the following suggestions.
1. Reactive – Increase funding for mental health counseling and treatment centers. The old model for housing people needs updating. In the old model people moved in and never left. We should increase the numbers who can find lodging but only with the idea that this is transitional. The expectation is that people receive treatment, become mentally stable, and move back as productive members of society.
2. Proactive –
a. Encourage foundations and government to fund social and emotional learning in schools. Sandy Hook Promise and Yale’s RULER program have demonstrated that children who experience these programs engage more in socially responsible behaviors. They are more empathic and inclusive of other students no matter what differences exist. They have healthier self-concepts, are better leaders, and achieve more academically. They are less likely to bully, engage in violence, or use drugs, alcohol, or tobacco products.
b. Commission emotional intelligence experts to study all information available from shooters to look for themes. We should ask the group for recommendations about how to impact the emotions that lead to these horrific behaviors. Let our actions be driven by science in hopes that we can diminish the numbers of people engaging in these acts.
Governance Specialist, EPMO, New York Power Authority (NYPA)
5 年It’s a good start. Thanks for the suggestions, Charles. The topics of gun control and mental illness shouldn’t have ever been confused to be one all encompassing issue. One can have a devastating impact on the other and I appreciate the approach you’ve taken toward speaking to one issue at a time. Regardless of access to fire arms, people who suffer mentally /emotionally can and should have more access to the help they need. We can be, as difficult as it sounds, more proactive. As one who has worked decades in the past with patients dealing with mental illness, we knew who received our care who could neither process nor gauge the responsibility of holding any weapons, and some could craft a few from household items. If we find funding for transitional intake programs, we can at least gain valuable 1:1 time assessing and securing diagnosis. With regard to gun violence, yes, again we should definitely reverse engineer the violent offenders’ histories to identify patterns and begin research.