Gun Control: In Ongoing Defiance of Conventional Wisdom

In defiance of conventional wisdom on the futility of trying to change gun control laws at either the state or national level, I intend to use my small voice to return to this issue from time to time. Significant issues will disappear only if we allow them to.

In my last post, A Likely Story, I lightheartedly underscored the importance of narrative in our lives. In this post, I will supply the bullet points (there is no escape from  gun-related terminology in American English); I will leave you, Dear Reader, to supply the narrative.



From today's NYTimes Editorial:

It is widely believed in Washington that there is no chance the gun lobby and the new Republican majority in the House would ever permit passage of the modest ideas for tightening America’s absurdly lax gun laws that have surfaced since the massacre in Tucson.

One thing that could be usefully addressed is that many state records on disqualifying involuntary commitments and adjudicated mental instability are not being submitted to the federal background check system. Records of drug abuse or addiction also rarely make it into the system, according to Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s gun policy group. 

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Untreated alcohol and illicit drug abuse and, to a lesser extent, certain types of mental disorders, are positively correlated with gun violence. When mental health treatment is discussed nationally and by state, that includes alcohol and drug treatment.

From the National Institutes of Mental Health, Statistics for Arizona, 2007 State Estimates for residents 18 years of age and over...the legal age for firearm possession. State population has increased and availability of services continues to decline since '07.  (SAMHSA Office of Applied Studies)

• Est. numbers of illicit drug abusers and dependents (including marijuana abuse), needing but not receiving treatment - 109,000
• Est. numbers of alcohol abusers and dependents needing but not receiving treatment - 330,000
• Est. binge alcohol abuse (5 or more drinks in one sitting in month prior to estimate) - 1,104,000
• Est. number of residents with "Serious Psychological Distress" - 504,000

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E. J. Montini of The Arizona Republic, January 21, 2011:

According to the latest estimated budget cuts proposed by Gov. Jan Brewer, roughly 5,200 people with serious mental illness will be removed from the state's Medicaid coverage list.
What will that mean?

Ted Williams, CEO of the Arizona Foundation for Behavioral Health, told the Republic's Mary K. Reinhart, “The reality is cutting services does not cut demand. Individuals who can no longer get services through the state will wind up getting services through emergency departments . . . or they'll get those services through the Maricopa County jail."

Or worse. In just the past week I've heard from a local nurse who wrote about her son, a psychiatric patient who would lose coverage under proposed cuts.

“I am at my wits end,” she said. “It is imperative that he get his treatments or it is a death sentence for him…”

On my voice answering machine another mother began by saying that she was calling at 4 a.m. “because I take care of a 25-year-old mentally ill son who has been in an agitated state since I made the mistake of having the TV on where he saw that our governor is proposing to cut the mental health funding that keeps him out of the hospital…”

And there was an e-mail from a woman concerned about a “mentally ill homicidal family member who made several death threats.”

It's like one of the concerned women told me, “The state saves money with these cuts, but what do they risk losing? Lives.”

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This short video clip features Suzi Hileman, a victim of the Tucson shootings.

* Tune into NBC's Dateline tonight, Sunday,, January 23rd at 7:00 (6:00 Central) for Suzi's extended interview with Brian Williams. Or go to msnbc.com and enter Suzi Hileman in search.