A Wake Up Call

Earlier this week, American society imploded. In a cultural environment teeming with intense violence and in a country rife with lethal firearms available to just about anyone, another young man has lashed out at a society he believed had destroyed and rejected him. There was a wide range of reactions to this tragedy. Some are calling for stricter gun laws, others are pointing to violent computer games. There are many people who are calling for armed guards in their schools, and a policy of zero tolerance against young people with emotional problems.

The problems with the later approach are many. The main ones are the implications of punishing people or restricting their freedoms because of something that they might do. There is also the danger that, seizing on the fact that the individual was being treated for a mental illness, many people will come to believe a that all people with a mental illness are capable of such an act, when in fact that they are generally less prone to violence than ordinary individuals, if they are being properly treated.

The stigma attached to mental illness is only going to be reinforced by these events, especially in our schools, and make young people even more reluctant to get help if they have a problem, for fear of being seen as a psycho and a killer. This sort of attitude will only serve to make things worse by making other such tragedies even more likely.

This is no time for the mental health community to shrink from the task of educating the public about mental illness; rather it is a wake up call. People need to know the facts about mental illness now more than ever. This tragedy needs to be placed within a larger context, so that people do not respond to it in a way that will increase stigma. This is a wake up call.