The Crab Chronicles

Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire

I believe in ghosts. Years ago I used to watch a show called Ghost Adventures and oftentimes the team would go into abandoned mental hospitals and talk about the hauntings there, and how horrible those places were. I have no doubt that they were awful. I would never advocate for bringing back those places, as they were operated in the past. However, I also believe that by closing those hospitals we made it harder to put away severely mentally ill people against their will, and that is a big component in the huge uptick in mass shootings, like the one that took place in Maine the other day.

Just in the past couple of years, mass shootings have increased dramatically (source) and so far in 2023 America has experienced 565 mass shootings -- and we have two more months to go before 2024. Something has to be done.

The factors leading up to this started around 1963, when President Kennedy urged states to close state run mental institutions and adopt a more community-based model for treating the mentally ill, according to Georgia Overhauls Its Mental Health System, a 2011 article. Furthermore:

"By the early 1980s, studies revealed thousands of patients released from state mental hospitals received no follow-up, treatment or assistance. In many states, smaller in-patient facilities like nursing homes and adult care homes became discharge destinations by default. And many of those facilities became the very institutions they were intended to replace, rife with neglect and abuse of those who needed help."

When I was a kid, I remember that you could walk into a store and buy a gun and walk out, without waiting on a background check. Boys could carry hunting rifles to school in their cars. Nobody freaked out. However, back then severely mentally ill people could be locked up in mental hospitals pretty easily too. Those terrible places where people were kept against their will prevented crazy people from victimizing others. I don't want to see them brought back but we have to be able to detect and put away people likely to commit mass shootings.

Details are now emerging about the Maine shooter.

"A Maine law enforcement bulletin circulated this week identified Card as a trained firearms instructor at the U.S. Army Reserve base in Saco, Maine. It said he had reported hearing voices and had other mental health issues..." Also the gunman "...suffered from paranoia and "felt like people were talking about him," factors that might have led him to target the venues he attacked." And yet, "...officials had no evidence Card was ever "forcibly committed" for mental illness treatment." [Source]

I also believe there has been a sharp uptick in all gun violence because so many mentally ill people live on the streets. Serious mental illness and homelessness go hand in hand. According to this source:

"In 2006, Markowitz published data on 81 US cities, looking at correlations between the decreasing availability of psychiatric hospital beds and the increase in crime, arrest rates and homelessness. He reported that, as state hospital bed capacity decreased, the number of mentally ill homeless individuals increased, along with crime and arrest associated with homelessness. This is consistent with studies in Massachusetts, Ohio and New York in the late 1980s finding that, within six months, 27% to 38% of patients discharged from state mental hospitals were homeless or had “no known address.”

Of course there are other factors that are important when considering the causes of gun violence and mass shootings, undeniably. It is very difficult to get mental health treatment -- for anyone. It's expensive and many insurance companies will not pay for it, or will only pay part of the costs.

I also blame the ACLU. Of course, they deny any role in mass shootings and cast the blame elsewhere, saying the gun industry should be better regulated.I disagree.To legally buy a gun in this country is not a quick or easy process. It's actually quite difficult. I should know. My brother works in a store that sells guns. However, to illegally obtain a gun is not that difficult. So if we ban guns, criminals will still have them but good, sane folks will be vulnerable. Most police departments are experiencing critical manpower shortages because nobody wants to be part of that profession. So banning guns or making them extremely hard to get is not a good solution.

I cannot offer any quick and easy solutions. Every time there is a mass shooting people have a fit about gun control, but so far I have not heard one argument from those folks that sounds like a good plan. Posting signs saying "Gun Free Zone" just encourages unstable people to view schools, churches, and shopping centers as great places to kill people. The signs make the problem worse -- and I credit author Larry Correia for teaching me that. He has some very smart things to say about gun control and you can learn more here.

Here are what I see as the facts of this whole dilemma:

Mental hospitals of the past unfairly incarcerated people and were often horrific places and should not be re-created. However, we need to do better about helping mentally ill people in this country.

Perfectly sane people do not shoot innocent people. The data is clear that by emptying and closing down mental institutions and/or making it difficult for mentally ill people to get treatment, we are just forcing them to live on the streets. They self-medicate with drugs and/or alcohol and commit crimes to support their habits, often ending up in prison, which is not appropriate treatment either.

Most mentally ill people do not think they are mentally ill. Often they do not want to take their medication. My son had a roommate who fit that profile in that he hated taking his meds but I have seen him nut up and it is very scary. Years ago, my father had to fire an employee who was bipolar and wouldn't take his meds, and the man threatened to kill Dad. Dad carried a gun for years afterwards. I have seen mentally ill people in my own family who were on the edge of violence. If someone doesn't want to believe they are mentally ill, or doesn't want medication, right now there is nothing that can be done, long-term. You can only commit someone involuntarily for a few days, and then they are released.

The Maine shooter should not have been free. The tragic result of the stupidity and short-sightedness of our treatment of the mentally ill is that good, and normal people are DYING. Every day, everywhere.They should haunt our politicians, get them to enact legislation that will make it easier and faster to get help for the mentally ill.

As a nation, we HAVE to figure this out and it will not be an easy or quick process.

[right, me and my brother in high school, shooting out in the country]

#howtostopmassshootings, #mentalhealthreform, #stoppinggunviolence, #gunsarenottheissue, #homelessnessandmentalillness, #larrycorreiaisright

For Evil to Flourish

I flinch when I turn on the news now. I flinch and I feel myself grimacing as I watch people in Israel, and Gaza, and sometimes I get big tears in my eyes. Like others around the world, I am mesmerized by what I'm seeing on the television.

It seems like something out of a horror movie, incomprehensible.

"For evil to flourish it only requires good men to do nothing." - Simon Wiesenthal

Only once in my life have I ever witnessed someone seriously hurt by other human beings and it shocked me, and there was absolutely nothing I could do.

I made two trips to Kazakhstan to adopt my son in 2007. On the first trip I went to the orphanage every day for several weeks and visited Michael and got to know him, then there was the adoption hearing on April 3, then a wait of several more weeks before everything was legally finalized. I flew home during that time, so I could work and save my leave time for when Michael got home. When I returned in early May 2007, I took a flight to Frankfurt, then another flight to Astana.

I got off the plane in Astana and had to go to the customs line and show my passport so I could get into the country. I was standing at the end of the line and I heard a noise behind me and turned around. A very large Russian man was being led over to the customs area in handcuffs. Clearly, he was a prisoner. The small Asian men who were guarding him looked like elves escorting a gorilla. When the Russian man saw a way to run out of the airport -- we were near the doors -- he bolted, but he didn't get but a few feet away before the small Kazakh guards tackled him to the ground.

For several minutes, the guards savagely beat the big man, hitting and kicking him as he screamed HELP ME HELP ME, in Russian. I had studied Russian and learned those words. I stood there frozen in horror, unable to not look. Finally, the big man fell silent. The guards finally pulled away, and I saw a huge pool of blood spilling out from the Russian man's head. A stretcher was brought in and he was carried away. The pool of blood remained.

There is a vast difference between watching a movie -- or even a documentary -- and seeing someone beaten, and watching it in real life.

I had never seen something so terrible, and it shook me up very much. I don't know what the big Russian man had done, what crime he had committed, but I know how I felt watching that beating. I felt terrified, and horrified, and I have never forgotten what I saw. I will never forget what I witnessed.

I cannot watch very violent movies, even though I know the violence is not real. I flinch. I grimace. I usually pull out my phone and stare at the screen.

I tell this story because I feel utterly helpless regarding the situation in Israel and Gaza, and that worries me.

I don't ever want to feel nothing, in the face of human suffering. If we are insensitive to horror then we lose our humanity.

I am descended from mostly British and Irish ancestors [88%, according to 23andMe] and many of my ancient ancestors were the barbarians who brought down the Roman empire.

My Scottish ancestors [there were many] were/are fierce fighters.

I descend also from a Civil War sharpshooter. I am the granddaughter of a professional soldier and the sister of an Army major.

I am not a violent person but to protect my family, particularly my children, I would call upon the spirits of my fighting ancestors and ask them to help me protect those I love. I am talking about an extreme, and unlikely situation, though. I hope and pray I will never have to defend myself or my family.

What I cannot understand is WHY. We live in an amazing age of technology unsurpassed in human history, so why are we still savagely killing each other?

I condemn anyone who would kill another human being not for self-defense or protection of family, but simply for land, or a political ideology.

The older I get the more I believe that the power and energy of human love is the most powerful energy in the world. We have to somehow harness that power to defeat hate. Hate is the ultimate Evil, the direct opposite of Love.

If we focus love and healing energies to places like the Middle East and Ukraine, where Evil is winning, I think we can change things. What else can those of us who are old and/or powerless physically actually do?

I have started to pray constantly for Love to win. I leave the "how" of that up to God.