Tragedy,Guns and Mental Health

Last week we heard of the Sandy Hook shootings of 26 people in the Sandy Hook Elementary School; 20 of which were 6 and 7 ear old's...the poster children for a Lily Pulitzer or Ralph Lauren advertisement. These were beautiful children from an upper class Connecticut neighborhood who vacationed in the Vineyard or Cape Cod...the shooter as news put it  was a disturbed individual with mental health issues.  He shot these children with semi automatic rifles with each child being shot over 10 times...Parents were not even allowed to view the bodies due to the severity of the injuries which is to show the ferocity of this attack.

If this was an inner city school this would be tragic and it would be something we expect to happen since it is the inner city. Our country kills innocent children in the hills of Pakistan an no one has a worldwide vigil. It is the severity of this silent caste system in this country that many children
have slipped through the cracks of American ignorance to the plight of the child without the skin tone
of the blonde hair blue eyed puritanical family. The Polo/Pulitzer children are now the poster child of gun violence. The children of Chicago,Philadelphia,L.A,Miami,NYC are just statistics on the battle of crime.

Our forefathers saw the Second Amendment as a way to protect from the perils of the time at the creation of this Amendment ...they did not even fathom on how this Amendment would be the catalyst for the NRA and its lobbyists. These guns that are now being sold in stores where you can buy a pack of beef jerky along with an AK 47 and the gun used in last weeks shooting.  Aging 70's rock stars and Ben Hur would vow that the government would never take their guns for their cold dead hands...well maybe it's time. These guns we manufacture are slaughtering individuals who mostly are in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Second Amendment was not for these guns or individuals...No Sir...Betsy Ross did not need a glock to protect her from her angry seamstresses for their overtime demands...so why do we need automatic riffles to hunt Gentle Ben or Bambi.

The topic of Mental Health has drawn fire and the individuals that have done these terrible mass shootings. It's funny these Congressmen , Senators and Governors are the ones cutting  funding for these programs and State and County run centers for the treatment of mental health issues are the losers. Being Bi Polar myself I have seen drastic cuts in Pennsylvania that have closed drop in centers and eliminated case workers while funding pork barrel projects. We have turned our backs on these individuals who are in need of our support and to be monitored for their meds. Instead these centers are closed and they become homeless , taken in by their families who have no idea how to deal with them and with some ending up in a jail cell.

Mental Health is this Century's Scarlet Letter. We have to reexamine the medicines we give individuals...the common factor with these shooters is that they have gone off their meds ; why is this. I have heard so many times and let me reiterate that many,many times these individuals say they do not like how they make them feel. I can sympathize with them being I was once on Paxil,Effexor and Prozac and all three after being on for months I became more depressed , rages where common , Effexor if I had missed a dose I became physically ill...and suicidal . We are a nation of Pills and Guns and the regulations for both of these are so out of touch with reality that it is a given these events will happen again ;if we do not address the Mental Health Issues and Gun Laws... ASAP.