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How mental illness is treatment essay
How mental illness is treatment essay
How mental illness is treatment essay
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According to the Congressional Research Services about 32.4% American adults suffer from mental illness in a given year. The estimated prevalence of serious mental illness among all American adults is 5.8%, or a little over 18 million people. (CRS, 2013) These statistics are critical when evaluating the recent conversations about mental illness and gun control in the United States. Tucson, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Sandy Hook Elementary and Washington Navy Yard are all places that will forever be scarred and remembered by what psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey calls, “predictable tragedies”. (Fuller Torrey, 2013) The shooters in these awful cases all had something in common: showing symptoms of severe mental illness that went improperly treated prior to the shootings. I have never been directly affected by one of these terrible incidences, but I do feel passionately about finding possible solutions that could help prevent another one of these tragedies. Every time I hear about a mass shooting, my heart breaks for the victims and their families, especially knowing that their loss has been attributed from a failing approach to mental illness in our healthcare system. As a nursing student and future nurse, I am passionate about advocating for all people suffering from both physical disease and mental illness. I think the stigma our society puts on mental illness is absolutely crippling. Even more detrimental, is the notion that when we talk about these mass shooting we should not talk about the mental illness the shooters suffered from because that causes negative stigma. Refusing to acknowledge proven signs and symptoms of mental illness does not fix the problem, and it does not bring awareness to society. It is wrong to connect all mental... ... middle of paper ... ...imes. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/19/us/politics/mental-health-again-an- issue-in-gun-debate.html?_r=0 Rosenthal B. (2013) Boarding mentally ill becoming epidemic in state. The Seattle Times. Retrieved from http: seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2021968893_psychiatricboardingx ml.html Tanfani J. (2013) Keeping guns away from people with mental illness is a complex issue. The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2013/sep/21/nation/la-na- shooting-background-checks-20130921 Weinstein LC., Lanoue MD., Plumb JD., King H., Stein B., Tsemberis S. (2013) A primary care- public health partnership addressing homelessness, serious mental illness, and health disparities. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23657696 Word Health Organization. (2013) Mental health legislation and human rights. ISBN: 92-4- 154595-x
have shown the firearm homicide and suicide rates in the US are several times higher than that of any other industrialized country” (Towers 2). The automatic reaction people have to mass shooting is talking about gun control and mental illness policies. Every time a mass shooting occurs both the people and the government go crazy trying to find a solution yet there is no solution. The United States needs to set up mental illness awareness programs to decrease the number of mass shootings.
Tanfani, Joseph. "Keeping Guns Away From People With Mental Illness is a Complex Issue." Los Angeles Times. Web. 7 Feb. 2014.
Mental illness gets more negative attention when these school shootings happen, because all it does is add to the already deep-rooted idea that people with mental illness are dangerous. However, the truth is that if society had paid more attention to the kids who exhibited these symptoms earlier, then they might not have acted out in such an extremely violent
The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms, but only in cases of self-defense and hunting for food. However, the use of guns has drastically changed since 1791 when the amendment was implemented. Today, guns are not solely used in their intended ways. Since 2010, over eighty-seven school shootings have occurred within American grade schools, high schools, and universities, resulting in approximately 107 injuries and 109 murders of innocent students. The two most deadly shootings in the world occurred in the United States: the Virginia Tech University Massacre which left thirty-two dead and Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting which left twenty-eight dead. Each new shooting prompts a debate about gun control laws and leaves citizens wondering about the accessibility of guns; any United States citizen over the age of twenty-one that does not have any previous felonies is able to easily receive a gun license. Forty-nine out of the sixty-one school shootings that occurred between 1982 and 2012 legally obtained firearms. The statistics become even more outstanding: seventy nine percent of all shooters have been diagnosed with a mental illness or disability, including the Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook shooters, Seung-Hui Cho and Adam Lanza. Cho and Lanza were diagnosed with mental illnesses and disabilities, depression and autism, respectively. Even so, they were still able to acquire the guns they needed because extensive mental health background checks did not and still do not exist; Cho purchased his own weapon and Lanza stole his mother’s guns. Although the case studies of Lanza and Cho are only two out of the many school shootings, they should be considered prime examples to illustrate the necessity to add stri...
Gun violence in the United States is higher than ever, and criminals with guns will “…kill as many as 1000 people each day” (Alpers&Wilson). Taking this into perspective, it is only right to fight fire with fire or, in this case, use a gun to protect yourself and those around you. Gun control does not only decrease the ability for protection, it also decreases our rights as U.S citizens. The constitution clearly states that we are given the right to bear arms, meaning we may carry fire arms. Even if we have stricter laws for guns, it will not stop killers from shooting innocent people. These men and women causing damage to the lives of numerous individuals do not care if there is a law banning guns, because all they truly want to do is hurt others. The pain citizens endure every day from losing a family member, friend, or even just a colleague is repulsive. These permanent deaths continue to make people fearful and it causes damage in their lives; unless something is done. Most people agree that action needs to be taken to stop this inhumane cruelty, but the question is; what can be done? Americans need protection, rights, and power to break this inexcusable gun violence circling America. Gun restrictions for trustworthy and reliable gun owners have not been proven to weaken gun violence in the United States; therefore, gun control should be limited because it is only hurting America, not helping it.
Paul Mountjoy, “Gun Control and Mental Health,” The Washington Times, March 28, 2013, sec Communities.
Federman DG, Chanko EH. Differential Diagnosis in Internal Medicine: From Symptom to Diagnosis. JAMA.2007;298(17):2070-2075. doi:10.1001/jama.298.17.2072.
Mental health is huge problem in the United States, especially when it allows certain individuals to have access to firearms. Politicians should aim to work more on keeping guns out of the hands of those who seek to harm others, not the law abiding citizens. But this is no easy task. In the CNN article, The real gun problem is mental health, not the NRA, the author, Mel Robbins, points how the mental health problem is to blame , not the gun. Robbins states "Next time there 's a mass shooting, don 't jump to blame the National Rifle Association and lax gun laws. Look first at the shooter and the mental health services he did or didn 't get, and the commitment laws in the state where the shooting took place." (Robbins) Like the first article, the author uses the ethical approach. How can we just sit by and let this keep happening? Many people seek help for mental illness and do not get the proper help that they deserve. If the proper steps were taken, some of these tragedies could have been prevented. The background check system should be a little tougher than it currently is. This is something that many law abiding gun owners agree on. Especially when it comes to the mental health part. Giving a mental health screening to somebody before getting a firearm would almost certainly help. However, no system is perfect. It would have its flaws. Not only is mental
In his Wall Street Journal article, “Mass Shootings and a Mental-Health Disgrace,” Tim Murphy, a United States representative from Pennsylvania and a psychologist in the Navy Reserve Medical Service Corps, analyzes the correlation between mentally ill individuals and the mass shootings that have been making headlines recently. Murphy has come up with the idea of a new bill: the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act. He says this bill will help those individuals who have mental disabilities get the help that they need before their disabilities get any worse. In today’s world, people with a mental illness get sent to prison if they do something wrong instead of getting sent to a psychiatric hospital where they belong. I think this
A series of shots being fired in the near distance can be heard. A crew of ambulances, police cars, and fire trucks are seen speeding down the streets while blaring their sirens to warn people to move out of the way rapidly. Then, crowds of people are seen running down the street franticly. Sounds of earsplitting yells fill the air. Their eyes are filled with tears of fear and terror. They look as if they were running for their lives. There is a wave of worry and curiosity that washes over everyone’s face as they stand there from a distance watching it take place. There was a sense of wanting to run towards the chaos to see what was going on. But the panic of the people running gave off the feeling of “Warning! Do NOT come this way!” What was happening? Later that night, the news reports that another mass shooting took place earlier on in the day. In the 21st century, many crimes involving mass shootings are the main focus of the public eye in the media. With the technology of the 21st century, investigators are able to look more into depth of the criminal’s background to see if they have a history of mental illness.
They suggested that not only mental illness but other factors such as social relationships, firearm access during emotional moments etc also lead to gun violence. However, they failed to cite this with strong facts, numbers etc. Reports suggest that up to 60% of executioners of mass shootings in the United States since 1970 displayed symptoms including acute paranoia, delusions, and depression before committing their crimes[4,5]. In another article “Rates of Household Firearm Ownership and Homicide Across US Regions and States, 1988–1997”[6], the authors emphasized on the “association between rates of household firearm ownership and homicide across the United States, by age group”. In this analysis, they failed to take gender, mental health and other factors into consideration which helps more to analyze that which type of people (mentally ill) and/ or which gender are doing these cruel
On December 14th, 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut, Adam Lanza shot and killed twenty children, six staff members, and his own mother; this occurred because Adam Lanza was a man with a psychiatric illness with possession of many guns. If Adam Lanza did not have possession of this gun, twenty seven lives could have been saved. There are criminal background checks that take place in order to own a gun, however the government is missing one crucial aspect to it, and that is the medical background check. Even though there are laws against people with mental illnesses having guns, but the government has no way of checking if they have an illness because they do not conduct medical background checks to do so. Mass shootings by people with mental illness are a growing reoccurrence in the United States that needs to be prevented in order to save the lives of American citizens. People with psychiatric history should not be allowed to own guns because there is an increased risk of violence, people with psychiatric illness are not mentally stable, and the United States does not do proper screening and background checks for gun permits.
Over the past years media has been overwhelmed with news about mass shootings happening around America and if mental illness is the primary cause of the violent act. On February 2014, Jonathan M. Metzl and Kenneth T. MacLeish published their article “Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, and the Politics of American Firearms” in the American Journal of Public Health that addresses the issue that mental illness has very little to do mass shootings which is commonly used on the aftermath of the shooting
“The more energy they have to gin up to execute their plan, the harder it will be to do so” (Newman). When “Would be shooters” are faced with a challenge they most likely don’t go through with their plan. The dedicated shooters are those who intend on finding guns and shooting people, those who have the drive. “Totally dedicated shooters” are the type of people who wont give up whether the guns are accessible to them legally or illegally. Dedicated shooters have a plan of action and intend on going through with it. These types of people likely suffer from mental illnesses. “The abnormally high level of school shootings in America is not solely a gun issue a mental health issue, or a media issue, but rather a problem caused by a combination of mental illness problems, social inequality, gun control policies, and the structure of schools”(Gupta, 2016). Structural inequalities in the United States cause stress, which lead people to turn to radical measures. Factors such as economic change, racism and social changes cause constraints on behavior. Mental health is also a leading factor to school shootings. “Metzl and MacLeish’s research shows that up to 60 percent of mass shootings in the United States since 1970 involved shooters displaying symptoms of mental illnesses—including paranoia, depression, and delusions—and the evidence suggests that
Mass media “references to people with mental health problems found more than four in ten articles in the press used derogatory terms about mental health and nearly half of press coverage related mental illness to violence and crime” (Esseler, 244). This is causing for people to look down upon the mention of mental illnesses and many times ignore the importance of confronting this issue. Therefore the importance of removing this stigmatization is crucial. Education allows to make more informed decisions and then changing the perception of mental illness can lead towards policy changes toward the improvement of mental health (Sakellari,