In the 1960's there was a "reform" movement which basically began to close down all of the large state owned mental hospitals where the mentally ill had previously been confined to. This movement was started by liberals who thought the mental institutions where inhumane and they cited numerous cases where abuses did actually occur but by the 1970's and 1980's it was conservatives, who wanted to save money, who started closing the publicly owned mental hospitals in mass and then just dumping the mentally ill on the streets where most of them became homeless. Now, this may just be a correlation but there is likely a direct link between closing those old public mental institutions down and the rise of mass shootings in America especially since about half of the mass shooters have histories of mental illness.
Madness, Deinstitutionalization & Murder
March 2012
Mass Shootings: Maybe What We Need Is a Better Mental-Health Policy
What do you folks think?
Madness, Deinstitutionalization & Murder
March 2012
For those of us who came of age in the 1970s, one of the most shocking aspects of the last three decades was the rise of mass public shootings: people who went into public places and murdered complete strangers. Such crimes had taken place before but their rarity meant that they were shocking.
Something changed in the 1980s: these senseless mass murders started to happen with increasing frequency. Why did these crimes go from extraordinarily rare to commonplace?
For a while, it was fashionable to blame gun availability for this dramatic increase. But guns did not become more available before or during this change. Instead, federal law and many state laws became more restrictive on purchase and possession of firearms, sometimes in response to such crimes. If gun availability does not explain the increase of mass public murders, what else might?
At least half of these mass murderers (as well as many other murderers) have histories of mental illness.
In the 1960s, the United States embarked on an innovative approach to caring for its mentally ill: deinstitutionalization. The intentions were quite humane: move patients from long-term commitment in state mental hospitals into community-based mental health treatment.
Even the mother of all Leftist publications Mother Jones agrees-Something changed in the 1980s: these senseless mass murders started to happen with increasing frequency. Why did these crimes go from extraordinarily rare to commonplace?
For a while, it was fashionable to blame gun availability for this dramatic increase. But guns did not become more available before or during this change. Instead, federal law and many state laws became more restrictive on purchase and possession of firearms, sometimes in response to such crimes. If gun availability does not explain the increase of mass public murders, what else might?
At least half of these mass murderers (as well as many other murderers) have histories of mental illness.
In the 1960s, the United States embarked on an innovative approach to caring for its mentally ill: deinstitutionalization. The intentions were quite humane: move patients from long-term commitment in state mental hospitals into community-based mental health treatment.
Mass Shootings: Maybe What We Need Is a Better Mental-Health Policy
What do you folks think?
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