Republicans Be Like…

Modern Conservative Republicans be like:

“You can’t judge all gun owners by the actions of a few bad.”

They also be like:

“You can’t let those Syrian refugees in here! One might be a terrorist!”

And like:

“We can’t take any more immigrants, one might be member of a drug gang!”

Trump’s Republicans be like: Six people died from vaping, so we need to outlaw flavors.

They also be like: “How dare Michelle Obama try to force healthy school lunches on our kids?” and “You can’t outlaw Super Big Gulps and cigarettes! It’s our choice if we wanna risk getting cancer or getting fat!”

Modern Republicans be like: “You can’t ban guns! Ban’s don’t work! Just look at the ‘war on drugs!'” and “Criminals don’t follow laws,”

But then: “We need to ban abortion to protect the unborn babies!

And THEN: “If they outlaw guns, I’ll become an outlaw!”

And also like: : “If they don’t want to lose their kids or see them in cases they shouldn’t have broken the law”

And like: “Sanctity of life!”

But also like: “Why didn’t he do what the officer said?!”

Modern Republicans be like: “Any guns we want in any volume is our second Amendment right!”

But also: “A woman gives up the right to privacy and to make decisions to her own body (14th Amendment) when she gets pregnant!”

And: “OUR Freedom of Religion allows us to violate other people’s rights to not be discriminated against, and to refuse service to people whose lifestyle we don’t agree with.

But: “It’s not fair that we get harassed for wearing our Trump hats and expressing our political ideas!”

And after all of that, they turn around and try to paint the left as melodramatic, pushy, “politically correct” hypocrites. Yeah, okay.

Conspiracy Theory Monday, or: How the Gov’t Actually Controls Us

The Trump admin recipe for Takeover:

Start with struggling middle class and add one part old-angry white guy who can’t say the n-word anymore.

Stir in a heaping cup of militant patriotism and a few dashes of irrational misplaced anger at kneeling football players.

Shake that shit up!

Next, take away health care access and any federal aid that “those lazy bums” might be using to, you know, eat and stuff. Take away money from middle class, (in the form of sneaky new tax laws) but don’t forget to tell the middle class the poor people are using their money.

Sprinkle in some self-righteous gay hate and unrealistic fear of “being persecuted” for being Christian, (all while claiming this is a Christian country.)

And finally, remove regs barring mentally ill people from obtaining “legal” firearms.

Now, add heat and agitate the fuck out of it, then watch it explode, like a lit pipe in like a meth lab.

Then swoop in and heroically pick of the pieces, writing any policy you want because people are too shell shocked to fight you.

The End…

no, really. It will prob be the end of the “United” States as we know it.

Sound paranoid? Any more paranoid than thinking our government is bent on taking our guns so they can commit genocide? Doubt it. After all, how would they make money off of us if we were dead?

You Have the Right to Shut the F*ck Up

I think this is the last I’ll say on this topic (and that includes responses to any irate gun owners.)

Do I think rights are important?  Yes.

Do I think they are guaranteed or owed?  No

Do rights really exist?  One would think a right is something that can’t be taken away or given.  Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, bearing arms… all can be taken away.  They are not guaranteed.

Unfortunately, there is little in this world that can not be taken away.  Most of the “rights” we have are “rights” that were given to us, either by law or religion.

We are born into this world naked.  We don’t come from our mothers equipped with a full set of rights.

According to Wikipedia and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, rights are defined as follows:

Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people, according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory.

To me, the key word in this passage is entitlement.  I see a fair amount of abuse directed at Americans online, especially by non-Americans.  We’re “bullies,” we’re ignorant, we’re arrogant.

While I do largely agree with that assessment, it still rankles me to see an entire nation discriminated against based on the actions of a few, namely the government.

But, America does have a problem, and I think it comes largely from a sense of entitlement.  I honestly think our problem with violence in this country largely stems from that feeling of entitlement.  And we got that sense of entitlement from our own government and judicial system.  Our country was founded on some “fundamental rights”, enacted by Congress.  Fast forward a couple hundred years to the land of frivolous lawsuits, some of which are actually won.

Between laws set forth and court rulings (judgments) on criminal cases and civil suits, our country has set a dangerous precedence.  They have given a lot of people in this country the mentality of a three year old, that being, “I deserve to be happy, I deserve to get my way, and if I don’t, I’m going to have a temper tantrum sue.”

I am sick to fucking death of seeing all the people who have been proselytizing about their “right to bear arms” in the wake of Newtown.  Between the gun rights advocates and the gun control advocates, it seems there can be no middle ground either.  You would think some of the gun control laws being proposed or already in place are common sense.  But lately it feels like people are immune to common sense, or even facts and statistics.

You’re pissed about your “right to bear arms?”  Well, guess what.  Those 20 dead little kids should have had a right to go to school without fear of gruesome death!  I’ve  got news for you; most of the rights you have were given to you by the government, and thus, can be taken away by the government.

Some people would argue our “rights” are what separate us from less civilized people and places.  I agree that rights are important, but what I am trying to get across is that people are letting their perceived rights make them arrogant and ambivalent to the plights of others.  Believe it or not, I actually support the right to bear arms.  That said, I do not think that right should be without restrictions.  My problem is with the people placing their “right to bear” over the safety of our children, with lame arguments that “guns don’t kill people,” and opposition to even statistical data that supports the fact that easy access to weapons means the weapons get used more often in crimes of violence (case in point, the statistics on victims of lethal domestic violence and gun ownership.)**Someone the other day argued with me that by this logic, since his whole family owned guns, I was insinuating that one of them must be an abuser.  Such ignorant misinterpretation of the facts is a symptom of the arrogance I mentioned.  This person simply did not want to acknowledge any factual data that ran counter to his own desire to “keep his guns.”**  What this basically boils down to is, in the case of domestic violence, if a gun is around to be used, there is a higher chance it will be used.  I realize most gun owners are not abusers, but I’m going to extrapolate to violent crime in general and say if a person has easy access to a gun (whether it’s their own or a family member’s or friend’s), they are more likely to use said gun.

Maybe it seems like I’m picking on the “gun people.”  It’s only because the news and social media sites have been flooded with knee-jerk speeches about gun rights and gun control since the Newtown tragedy.  But the basic idea applies to everyone.

Maybe it’s a stretch, but I think if you take the idea of entitlement one step further, you are on your way to understanding the cause of a lot of violence too.

“I want something, you can’t keep me from having it, I have a right to have it, I’m going to take it. “

It seems to be pretty obvious that all the media coverage on mass killings like this seem to encourage other unstable people to air their grievances in a similar manner.  People who are dissatisfied, feel “wronged,” are unhappy with their lot in life, now feel entitled  to be noticed, to force their pain on others.

Anyway, though I digressed (at length) and maybe vented a bit, everyone is entitled to their opinion…and that’s about the only “right” you have that can’t be taken away.

*** Like I said, everyone is entitled to their opinions (the above is my opinion,) and you are welcome to share yours as long as it’s respectful.  Just please don’t expect a response from me regarding “gun rights,” because I think I’ve said all I have to say.  

 

Gun Control, Gun Rights, and Women (updated)

Pursuant to the massacre at Newtown and President Obama’s subsequent attempt to institute a stricter gun policy, there has been a tight focus on gun rights and an immense push to make our schools safer for our children.  Needless to say, the result is that the divide between gun rights advocates and gun control advocates is widening.

I have always leaned towards agreeing with the right to own a gun and protect oneself and one’s family.  That said, I believe the words gun control have gotten a bad rap.  Somewhere along the way, the idea of moderation, of common sense, got lost to both sides and the words gun control became synonymous with  “complete firearm ban.”

I do believe control is the issue.  I think people who own firearms need to better secure them against theft and illicit use (even by members of their own families.)  I think gun owners should be held to the strictest responsibility for their firearms.  I do not feel there should be a total ban on firearms.

The aim of this article though is to give some food for thought to both sides by introducing a slightly different perspective on the gun rights issue.  This is merely information…information backed by statistics and scientific inquiry.

I doubt there is anything worse than what happened at Sandy Hook in December, but this information shifts the focus of gun victimization.  To women.

Abused women are five times more likely to be killed by their abuser if the abuser owns a firearm.(source)

This is women, killed by men who legally own their firearms.  In short, it suggests a link between the availability of household firearms and female victimization rates.  

Of course, the first argument against this concept is that a man who would beat on his wife should not be allowed to own weapons, and there are laws that prohibit the purchase of a firearm by a person subject to a domestic violence restraining order.  But that is true only of known abusers.  What about the women who have not reported their abuse?

Approximately 20% of the 1.5 million people who experience intimate partner violence annually obtain civil protection
orders. (source)

As I said before, I’m not really trying to push a partisan view of the gun issue, I’m merely hoping to give both gun control advocates and gun rights advocates more information…

And perhaps help them to see we should all be working together towards a solution to end gun violence, rather than fighting against one another.  Maybe if we try to view the problem collectively- and objectively- we can come up with a solution that protects everyone’s rights and safety.

image: HR Giger

[UPDATE: (4/18)  I have no problem with gun ownership, in theory, but here’s what I think, as succinctly as I can put it: People keep spouting the whole “outlaw guns and only outlaws will have guns.” But the problem is, “outlaws” aren’t the only people committing gun crimes. Regular, everyday people are using their own guns (or family or friend’s legally owned guns) in domestic crimes, and then people are saying “We never thought he/she was capable of this!” So, clearly, despite heavy lobbiest protestations, it is not just inner city gang bangers and drug dealers using guns to kill each other. I agree with responsible gun ownership, I just think the word “responsible” needs to be redefined (and reinforced!!!) ] [Update: 10/2015 A 2014 view of the demographics of gun ownership in America.  And a 2013 NBC article FULL of gun and gun ownership stats.]

 Edit (6/2016)

After yet another mass shooting, by a homegrown (that’s American) Islamic terrorist,  using mostly “legally” purchased firearms…in a club with armed “good guys” (security guards)…

Analysis by the Violence Policy Center has found that at least 29 mass shootings since 2007 were carried out BY perpetrators with concealed carry permits. That’s more than three times the number of concealed permit holders who prevented mass shootings through their swift action. (source)

I am tired of banging my head against a wall arguing with people who let their emotions mold the “facts” to suit them.  To be very clear, it doesn’t matter how you “feel” about it, or how much you support 2nd Amendment rights; it is a documented fact that increased gun ownership in a developed county leads to increased gun deaths in that country.  Not only is it documented, it is common fucking sense…

The number of firearms injuries remains high in the United States, compared with most of the rest of the world. Firearm suicide rates are strongly impacted by the rate of gun ownership. (Kaplan and Geling, 1998) There is a positive correlation between firearm fatality rates and number of guns in developed nations.  (Bangalore and Messerli, 2013) (source)

(source)

To the gun nuts: Let’s be clear…  Obama doesn’t want your damn guns.  Gun “control” is not “confiscation.”  I know they both are “c” words but see if you can keep up with me here.

It is a myth that more guns will make us safer. It is a myth that other developed countries have “just as much” gun violence.  It is a myth that in most situations, but especially mass shooting situations, that a “good guy with a gun” can “stop” the bad guy. ((FBI report  on active shooter situations issued 2013) )

And yes, I am aware that not all gun control measures have been successful in the past.  I am NOT in favor of revoking all rights to bear arms, but this bullheaded refusal to acknowledge what irresponsible use of this right has cost us is pissing me off severely…

Federal data from the Centers for Disease Control indicate that between 2007 and 2011, an average of 62 children age 14 and under died each year in unintentional shootings.4 By this measure, American children are sixteen times more likely to be killed in unintentional shootings than their peers in other high-income countries.(source)

…and I know I am not the only one.

One thing remains certain, despite laws for or against gun control, a lack of care and concern regarding one’s fellow human beings, whether in war or through domestic violence, will continue to promote firearms injuries. (source)

Post Script: 6/12/2016
I would like to share one final source I came across today.
For OR against gun ownership, I don’t care. Just don’t keep pretending there isn’t a correllation and/or causal relationship. This article addresses every argument the pro-gun camp typically trots out, with data from a variety of sources. To be clear, I am NOT suggesting confiscation of weapons, but can we please stop frontin’ like there isn’t a problem?

There is a very strong correlation between gun ownership and gun violence — a relationship that researchers argue is at least partly causal. And American gun ownership is beyond anything else in the world. At the same time, these guns are concentrated among a passionate minority, who are typically the loudest critics against any form of gun control and who scare legislators into voting against such measures. (source)

But don’t let the above fairly editorialized blurb scare you off the article.  There are tons of independent studies and sources cited.

This article is pretty succinct, and sums up what I have been saying in pretty much any of my gun-related articles…  and anyone who still wants to argue is not gonna get any more time from me.

Related articles

• Gun Control Has Always Been A Part Of American History (personalliberty.com)
• Obama: Gun-control advocates have to listen more (sacbee.com)
• How They Got Their Guns (NY Times)
• http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/6-things-americans-should-know-about-mass-shootings/
• https://alienredqueen.wordpress.com/2015/10/03/umpqua-the-mental-illness-panacea-as-it-relates-to-gun-violence/
• https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/more-guns-do-not-stop-more-crimes-evidence-shows/

People to Obama: Do Something NOW…But not THAT!

My intention is that this will be a short post, where I make an important point concisely, as it really should be self-evident.  But…we all know how I seem to be be practically incapable of not pontificating or at the very least, indulging in tangent streams of thought as they occur to me.   See?  There I go again…

But the main thrust of this post is this; I find it amusing, in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way, that people are clamoring for the President to “do something” about the violence in our schools (and in the country in general,) some doubtlessly even going so far as to blame him for it, but the minute he makes a proposal, everyone is bitching about infringement of their rights.  I’m not saying I am either for or against President Obama’s proposal.  What annoys me in the reaction of an ungrateful country who shout a call to action, usually with no practical (or accurate) idea of what it takes to actually achieve success.

Rep. Paul Gosar’s statement on Obama’s proposal was the following:

I will actively fight any attempt by this Administration to undermine our Constitution and infringe upon the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. With the attack on personal gun-ownership, the Second Amendment, and our God-given rights, the Obama-Biden Administration has been relentless in their pursuit of taking guns away from law-abiding Americans. (source)

Some of these “free thinkers” even go so far as to compare Obama to Hitler.

Let me explain something to you…people of questionable intellect.  Hitler’s tyranny was born out of a society in disarray.  At first, Hitler offered an ideal that the people wanted to believe.  An article from the Scientific American Mind describes tyranny as the result of a group processes, not one individual person’s pathology.  And yes, our society is in disarray, but that is due as much to the idea of entitlement that has been sewn into the fabric of our society.  Now, everyone thinks they’re owed something, and that they have the right to make waves to get whatever that something is.  A lot of greed,  useless righteous indignation, and not enough consequences for poor behavior is what is ruining our society… not ONE man.

Groups… are ultimately about collective self-realization. They use social power to make an existence in the image of their shared beliefs and values. But when groups cannot produce such a
working order, their members become more willing to accept other social structures—even if these new systems violate their existing way of life.

In specific reference to Nazi Germany:

Moreover, when the collapse of a system wreaks such havoc that a regular and predictable social life becomes impossible,
the promise of a rigid and hierarchical order becomes more alluring. Thus, the chaotic failure of the democratic Weimar led to the rise of Nazism.

See? I have already written more than I intended, but forgive me, because it is all to support my point.

AT first glance maybe it seems like I am actually inferring that I agree with the conservative view of the President’s plan.  Actually, what I am saying is that:

a) It takes more than one man to create a tyranny and

b) the very people that are criticizing the President’s every move are still looking to him to give them an answer, a solution, and berate him if it is not the answer they were hoping for.

Basically, I liken this to the smaller scale example of the society/ laws that restrict parental rights and decision-making (corporal punishment, health care and vaccinations, etc) but then blame the parent when the kid gets loosed on society as a disrespectful, anti-social mess.

You can’t have it both ways!  You can’t expect someone to perform miracles with their hands tied behind their backs (or in bureaucratic red tape.)

Just sayin’.

Related articles

• Drudge Links Obama and Hitler on Gun Control. Left Cries, “Foul!” (teapartyeconomist.com)
• The 2nd Amendment Is What Makes The Other Nine Possible (forbes.com)
• Our Protections Against Tyranny (bettercareful.newsvine.com)
• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-elections-politics/how-conservatives-reinvented-the-second-amendment/

Can We Make Our Schools Safer?

*edited 

Oh, look.  Another school shooting.  Dismaying, but not surprising.  If you’re a regular reader, you may have already read a bit about my feelings and theories on Newtown and similar senseless and sensational crimes.  People are tempted to bring all sorts of political opinions  to issue, even if they have little (or nothing) to do with the crimes in question.  Many people spout rhetoric as an almost knee-jerk reaction, but a lot of people are just plain scared and are looking for an answer- any answer- to the problems plaguing our country and the world.

I don’t know what to do about guns.  I do believe access to guns is too easy.  People that don’t have guns of their own seem to be able to still procure them with relative ease, sometimes simply by stealing or “borrowing” one from someone they know.

Kern County sheriff Donny Youngblood said at a news conference Thursday night that the 16-year-old used a shotgun that belonged to his brother and went to bed Wednesday night with a plan to shoot two fellow students. (source)

I don’t think Mental Health Care reform is the problem, and at any rate, that seems to take the focus off the victims and hand the perpetrator an excuse.

Letting “God back in the schools” won’t do it either.

But one thing I think we can focus on is making our schools safer.  I don’t want to hear that it’s expensive.  The money that goes to inflated Congressional salaries and frivolous expenditures can and should be re-routed to make our children safer.

One thing that would help is to “treat schools like we treat courthouses,” as my hubby says.  I think metal detectors would be a great investment.  Every unsecured, public entrance to the school should have one.  (Really, ALL entrances should have one, but let’s not give the guys that write the budget simultaneous coronaries just yet.)  And a security guard posted at each entrance, especially during the hours of the day when there is high volume traffic.  If a metal detector is triggered, the guards can be on hand to handle the situation, and if a metal detector goes off at any given time during the day and is not immediately shut down, there should be a school-wide protocol that directs all teachers to lock down their classrooms.  Any students in the halls during a lock down would be directed to hide or make their way to a predetermined safe location.  Security officers should be specially trained to handle crisis situations.  We’re not talking a supermarket cop collaring people for trying to smuggle candied hams out in their drawls, we’re security personnel with the training and the will to take down a kids with a gun.  These little punks aren’t playin’ around and they need to know that the schools and the cops aren’t either.

Speaking of which, I know I can’t be alone in calling for stricter laws on media reporting, especially in the first few hours after a crisis.  One of the reasons that these freaks end up doing things on such a massive scale, shooting up schools and killing their whole families and whatnot, is because they think they can make a mark on the world, hurt people with their rage,  wrong others the way they’ve been wronged (in their pathetic little minds.)  I realize that people want to understand why these people do the horrible things they do, but the answers are usually more complicated than blaming guns, video games, music, or bullying.   Aside from whatever deranged, disturbed thoughts might pop out of the killers’ mouths if we were to ask them why, we usually don’t get that opportunity, because they often end up dead.  And it doesn’t really matter anyway.  What matters are the victims, and the media needs to take steps to keep the focus on them instead of glorifying the killer by validating his actions and intentions with exhaustive media coverage.

Well, the media will always cry “1st amendment “ and “the public has the right to know! so I’m sure I might as well just wish in one hand as far as media accountability, so back to the metal detector thing…it may not be a perfect solution, but it is one concrete step we as a community can take to try and make our schools safer for our children.

*see some of the stupid things the government could cut from their budget to make our schools safer!

“Mental Illness” and its Role in this Tragedy

I want to talk about this, but there’s just so much ground to cover, so many feelings and opinions about the subject.  I can’t get into all of it.  It’s just not in me emotionally.

Since the shooting at the elementary school in Connecticut, people all over Facebook (and I’m sure every other social media) are having very strong opinions about what caused this and about why we in America have more school shootings than anywhere else in the world (combined probably.)  The two main things I’ve seen are “Gun Control” and “the Mental Health Care System.” I am assuming there will be some “the answer is to get Bibles back in the schools” and “better education” coming along shortly.

The term mentally ill is already being thrown around when we know nothing for sure right now.  Probably because to most of us “sane” people, we can not conceive of a normal, well-adjusted person shooting at babies.  Bear with me, because I am so upset I am shaking as I type.  I understand the urge to blame someone, or something, especially since the killer, like so many of these cowardly wastes of skin, killed himself after he did these horrendous things.  It makes me so mad that he’ll never have to feel the GUILT he should feel, let alone pay for what he did.  I don’t believe in Hell. I wish I did, because then maybe I’d feel he’s getting what he deserves there now.

But I want to take a moment to explore what it means to be “mentally ill,” and how it may or may not apply to this situation.

Wikipedia describes mental illness as A mental disorder or mental illness is a psychological pattern or anomaly, potentially reflected in behavior, that is generally associated with distress or disability, and which is not considered part of normal development of a person’s culture. Mental disorders are generally defined by a combination of how a person feels, acts, thinks or perceives.

*The above definition may also be problematic because social factors can create sociopaths, people with antisocial personality disorder, which very much is in the DSM as a mental illness.  Sociopathy is highly correlated with lack of empathy, “damaged” moral compass, and violent crimes that can result from such a disorder.  Also, sociopathic personalities generally feel little distress about their lack of normal morals and emotions.

So, basically, sociological factors such as upbringing and economic factors can in fact combine with psychological issues to create a killer.  Essentially it is an play between nature versus nurture.  (edit 6/2015)

However, mental illness can encompass such things as anorexia, OCD, depression, phobias, stress disorders, and much more.  The point is, it can be said that half of America is mentally ill, under this criteria.  Mentally “ill” does not automatically mean violence, although, using criteria which measures behavior against society’s mores and parameters would naturally mean anyone who committed violence would automatically be considered “mentally ill.”  However, not all people who commit violent crimes have a mental illness diagnosable in the DSM.  At this early stage, I don’t think it’s helpful or accurate to say that the mental health care system is at fault for this.  I really can’t blame gun control or lack thereof either.  *In regards to gun control, the kind of gun control we really need is stricter fines and punishments for people like the mother (who died as a result of her irresponsibility anyhow), who knew her son was mentally unsound, yet did nothing to restrict his access to her guns.  Don’t misunderstand me.  While I do not advocate disarming citizens with a blanket ban on guns, I do believe there should be strict and definite sanctions for any gun owners who are caught being irresponsible in any way with their weapons (ie: leaving a loaded weapon in an unlocked car springs to mind, and yes, it happens quite a bit.)

I can’t help but think there is a social component to this phenomenon of school shooting.  I look at it in the same light as the increased suicides over bullying and the increase in family annihilators.  Some people are seeing this stuff reported and are getting it into their heads that this is an effective and acceptable way to “make a statement.”

There have always been bullies.  In schools and even in adult life. But since the explosion of social media, bullied kids can’t even get respite from their tormentors at home.  The bullies continue to harrass and hound their victims on social networking sites.  Though there were school shootings before Columbine, Klebold and Harris’s names became known the world over almost overnight.  Initially it was speculated that one or both of them had been bullied in school, and the killings were some form of retribution.* (New evidence seems to suggest they were not, in fact, bullied.  Rather, they were extremely angry and to some degree, psychopathic.  Psychopathy is in the DSM, but as a personality disorder.)  Now many bully victims are increasingly feeling that their only way out is suicide.  I can’t help but feel that like copycat suicides,  public response, media coverage, and perception have a lot to do with the proliferation of mass shootings.  But what is the answer to this problem?  Stop reporting on news and crimes?  It’s not possible, and shouldn’t be necessary.

But I don’t believe there is any one answer.  That would be too simple.  It’s not JUST a gun control issue, not just a mental health issue, not just a media reporting issue.  Our country, our world, is sick.  And I wish I knew what the answer was.

But what I will say is that, as a sufferer of an anxiety disorder, I would be classified as “mentally ill.”  Even were I not medicated, I can’t even imagine ever…EVER…going into a school and harming innocent babies!  I don’t understand why people like this feel the need to make innocents suffer for their misery.  Part of the problem I really believe goes back to personal responsibility.  I think America has become a society that fosters feelings of entitlement and a refusal to accept responsibility.  

Anyway, I’ve already wrote more than I meant to.  As a mother now, I feel a gut wrenching empathy for the parents of those poor children killed or wounded.  But I also feel a sense of desperation because I don’t know the answer.  I wish I did.  I just know that spreading the blame is not the answer, and mental illness is stigmatized enough without assuming that it’s the reason for this tragedy.  Arguably, a person who would do this is “not right” in the head, but it doesn’t mean the system failed him.  I’m betting he never gave the system a fair go in the first place.  In terms of mental issues, one usually has to acknowledge the need help, and want help to get help.

As an adjunct, please feel free to share your thoughts, but as this is a sensitive topic, I want to re-emphasize my policy on comment etiquette.  No flaming, keep it civil– or your comment will never make it past moderation.  I realize I may be expressing views that are contrary to your own.  I offer them up in the spirit of expressing my feelings and maybe trying the only way I know how to make sense of this.  I respect your right to disagree.  Please don’t take my words personally, and don’t make it personal.