Kimberly Emerson

A grave in Ireland for a family of six. Like the parents in Newtown, CT, these parents had to watch their children die ahead of them.

Folks, you all know what’s coming.  I tried to find a way not to talk about the shooting that claimed twenty-eight lives in Newtown, Connecticut this week.  No matter which way I went, though, it felt like an awkward dance around the elephant in the room.  (What kind of music do elephants like?  These are the things I wonder about when I’m trying not to think about the subject my brain keeps focusing on.)

The news from Connecticut this week was made all the worse for the fact that it was the latest in a long line of such tragedies from around our nation.  Before this, there was the Aurora, CO shooting in a movie theater, where 12 people died.  Prior to that, the shooting at Oikos University in Oakland, CA that killed seven.  Earlier in the year, three students died from a gun and knife attack at a high school in Chardon, OH.

Yes, you read that right – all of those incidents happened this year.  I don’t have the stomach to go back any further than that just now.  If you want to, check out this link at sfgate.com.  There are a lot more.

The last few days have brought a flurry of conversation about what to do.  Each suggestion is met with resistance and doubt.  What can we do that will work, without making things worse or invalidating the second amendment?  I don’t know for sure, but I know one thing: a lot of innocent people have died in just this year alone.  Too many.  We no longer have the luxury of inaction.  We have to try something.

There isn’t one simple answer.  There are several different areas that need to be addressed.  I list them here in what I believe to be increasing importance.   Just one writer’s opinion.

3.  Gun legislation

However you feel about gun control, it’s hard to ignore the fact that there are a lot of guns in our country – almost as many as there are people, and that’s just the legal ones.  Of the 23 richest nations in the world, we are #1 in gun ownership.  Yemen, at #2, has about half as many guns as people.  Our rate of homicides with guns is 3 per 100,000 people, per 2009 statistics (the most recent I could find).  The good news is, that’s down from 4.1 per 100,000 in 2003.  The bad news?  It’s still 15 times higher than the rate of the other 22 wealthiest nations combined, who averaged .02 per 100,000.  (These stats are from politifact.org, based on info they got from the World Health Organization.)

I love my country, but a smart person learns from other people’s mistakes – or in this case, their successes.  It’s time to take a look at the policies held in other countries.  In London, not even the police carried guns.  Traveling around on my own, I felt perfectly safe when I was there.  Maybe I got lucky, but maybe there’s more to it than that.  Let’s find out what has worked for them, and try it out over here.

It’s worth noting that the same day that the Newtown shooting happened, a man in China entered a school with a knife and wounded 23 children.  When discussing solutions, people brought up the fact that even when a society carefully controlled guns, angry people would find a way to take out their rage on their fellow human beings.  It’s a valid point, and it’s why gun control went to #3 on my list.  (Also notable, of course, is the fact that none of those 23 children died.  Evidently stabbing people to death is trickier than mowing them down with automatic weapons.  That’s why gun control is still on my list.)

2.  Mental health care

I’ve heard a lot of people mention that the shooter in Newtown had Asperger’s Syndrome.  Let’s get one thing straight: while it does need to be treated, Asperger’s is not a direct route to violence.  (Check out links to this effect from CBS News, Huffington Post and CNN.)  In fact, it’s kind of like saying that the guy had blond hair, so from now on all blonds should be treated as suspect.  Asperger’s, as with the rest of the autism spectrum, comes in as many different varieties as people do.

Ruling out the Asperger’s, the shooter clearly had other problems, and so did his mother.  Both of them could have benefited from a good counselor.

The United States health care system is an abysmal failure when it comes to mental health.  I say this as one who has wrestled with depression and anxiety issues for twenty-six of my forty-three years on this planet.  I know I’m sensitive about the issue, but I’ve dealt with enough doctors now to recognize the condescension that enters the room when the D word comes up.  Oh, their expressions seem to say, you’re one of those people.   (My present doctor has never treated me with anything but the utmost respect, which is why I’ve continued seeing her through at least four different insurance policies now.  They will probably have to pry my fingers from her pantleg when she finally decides to retire.)  Even if you can afford the treatment without the help of insurance, there is a huge stigma attached to depression, anxiety, bi-polarism, schizophrenia, or any other affliction to do with the mind.  (Interesting note from the CNN article: all of these show up later in life, as opposed to the Asperger’s, which is there from birth.)  When one doctor suggested I go on Prozac, he tried to convince me by saying, “Look how bad you are now.  Who knows what you might do next?”  FYI, folks, if you’re dealing with someone who’s already in an emotionally charged state, telling them that they might go psychotic at any second is not helpful.  When seeing my current doctor, she calmly explained to me the effects of Prozac, the usual side effects, and the benefits I might see.  If she thought I might go stark-raving mad without it, she didn’t bring it up.

All of that is just in the doctor’s office.  Try talking to the insurance company about seeing a counselor, and you’d think you had asked them to pay for a vacation in Hawaii.  The pills, they will usually cover.  Talking to a person, they don’t quite see the use for, even though respected studies have documented that medicine and therapy together make up the most effective treatment for depression.  Most policies now cover some kind of counselling  but only from the doctors they authorize and only for a limited number of sessions.  Alas, therapy doesn’t work like that.  It’s vital that you find a doctor with whom you connect.  (Somehow, the ones I prefer have never made the insurance company’s list.)  Once you do, treatment is usually an ongoing process, because it takes time to spill your guts about your innermost secrets, even to someone you like.  It’s supposed to.  They need to earn your trust.  A therapist once told me that if people get into really intimate details with her on the very first session, she knows they probably won’t come back.  Not because all their problems go away, but because they wake up the next morning and think, “Dear Lord, what did I tell her?”  And then they never want to see her again.  I believe her.  I’ve had dates go the same way.

All of this ugliness has come to me as a woman.  As detailed in this piece on Matrifocal Point, society’s disdain is much worse if you happen to be a man.  When you’re sad or angry or confused, and despite your best efforts you can’t make it go away, getting help is a good thing.  We need to convince society of this.  As my dad once said, “If you had a heart problem, we’d want you to get help for that.  How is this any different?”  It isn’t.  All of us, especially the insurance companies, need to recognize that.

1.  Making our world less violent.

When discussing how an individual becomes a mass murderer, someone always brings up violent movies and video games.  I don’t think they have a lot of redeeming features, but I don’t think they cause anyone to become interested in violence.  Most of the time, art reflects life, not the other way around.  If someone makes blood and gore a regular part of their entertainment, the propensity for brutality probably came first.

We live in a violent world, and kids learn that the first time they stumble onto a news website.  We solve our worst problems by killing people on the other side of the planet.  It’s nice that we can do it now with drones, so that no one’s life gets sacrificed on our side, but that doesn’t make the victims any less dead.  But we only target bad people, right?  We try, but a new study by Stanford and NYU says we’re not doing so well.  The study estimates that at least 11% of the dead are civilians, and a non-profit group in London called The Bureau of Investigative Journalism states that 176 children were killed by the drone strikes between 2004 and 2012.

Violence begets violence.  What’s the answer?  How do we deal with other countries when they have radically different views, when we feel they’re a threat to us?  The hell if I know.  Trouble is, we have to find something.  Those 176 children whose names we don’t know didn’t deserve to die either.

Big problems, all three of them, without obvious solutions.  I put forward ideas, but even if everyone agreed about them, which they don’t, we’d need a lot more discussion about how to make them into reality before any results turned up.

What are your ideas on how to improve our world?  Think about it, and then write and/or call your Congressperson, Senator and President.  Keep calling and writing.  (Handwritten notes get more notice than typed ones or emails, but emails are still better than no contact at all.)  Put pressure on them to take action.  Every time something like this happens – every heart-breaking time – we say that something has to be done so that it will never happen again.  Let’s make sure that this time, something actually does.

Before you do that, though, go find the people that you love.  Hug them tight, and forgive them for everything, because they’re here and you can.

Then get to work.

My vision of Heaven. (The house will be cozier inside.)
Wishing peace to all who we lost.

Kimberly’s heart can’t take any more just now, and she’s sent some emails off, so she has decided to hug Zoe and spend some time thinking about elephants doing the cha-cha.  Then, she will start with the letters again.

Tags: Aurora, children, Colorado, Connecticut, drone strikes, gun control, insurance, mental health, Newtown, OIkos University, peace, shootings, victims, violence