Guns and Madness

So sad that the corporate media does not know what paranoid schizophrenic thinking is. I know because my college boyfriend and 1st husband had a paranoid schizophrenic breakdown.

He thought his brain was controlled by a giant computer run by the government. He thought he could fly off the roofs of buildings. He thought he could walk on water. Fortunately, he did not have a gun -- or I wouldn't be alive today.

I was then in graduate school, doing work in 18th century English Lit. He was working at an exciting new market research firm when he had what was then called "a nervous breakdown." He tried to convince me to fly out the window with him. He was in a rage about government conspiracies. He believed that U.S. computers were controlling his mind. He believed he was Christ returned to earth for the apocalypse. I took him to the ER where the doctors confirmed that he was out of touch with reality.

My first love was treated with anti-psychotic drugs and later, much later, was able to have a fairly normal life -- if he stayed on his medications. His story is not a tragedy like Jared Loughner's.

It is probably the combination of guns and schizophrenia that made Jared Loughner a tragic case and saw so many innocents killed. We might ask why madmen are left untreated, why they can easily buy guns, why they are not cared for like the sick people they are. If we had a good health care system, if we had common sense gun laws, these people might be alive today. Like me.

 

 

 

Comments

[Rubiconski]

10:22 PM on 01/23/2011

So disarm yourself and wait for the cops to protect you if you like.

I'll not be taking that chance.

[SimonLeigh]

10:11 PM on 01/23/2011

Approximately how many Americans' lives HAVE been saved by owning a gun? Any?

[BluePhantom2]

08:39 PM on 01/23/2011

If you don't like guns don't own one, if you want to disarm everybody in the US get a constitutional amendment passed. Mentaly disturbed people who are bent on doing harm will do harm weather it's with a gun, knife, bomb, car or large stick.

[cyberfringe]

10:38 PM on 01/23/2011

You will admit, I hope, that guns are quick, very easy to use, and extremely deadly, and thus are significantly more dangerous in the hands of a mentally disturbed individual than the other weapons you cite.

[PA Denizen]

03:41 PM on 01/26/2011

Those same points about a gun also make it the most effective means of self defense available. The gun is a tool, an inanimate object that has no will and no ability to be good or evil. Those traits reside only in the human who wields the gun.

[Bishop999999999]

05:27 PM on 01/23/2011

People with mental illness can't buy guns.

So...yeah...

[tnkeating]

04:59 PM on 01/23/2011

Your friend was so lucky to have you with him as you obviously saved his life. You may in fact be right about if he had had a gun, however the lives that have been saved by having a gun far, far exceed the number of lives taken weather self inflicted or murdered. Based on what I have observed and read many people knew this guy was a few cards short of a full deck, warnings were givin and largely ignored. Maybe its just me but when I see a drunk driving down the road and they are a danger to others, I call the cops with my cell phone. Perhaps thats a good metaphor for what all of us should do if they know someone is a danger to others. You may feel bad that you got someone in trouble, but you may have saved not only their lives but perhaps others. I am my brothers keeper and I can't even run my own life.

[hagenjr]

08:30 PM on 01/23/2011

Exactly, we all share some responsiblity when we see things we know aint right.

[elizlucinda]

04:48 PM on 01/23/2011

Why do so many people talk about guns in terms of absolutely allowing anything and absolutely banning them?

It is difficult for outsiders to believe that the U.S. honours its own citizens when there is no will to put reasonable limitations on the possession and use of firearms.

[bubbatech]

04:45 PM on 01/23/2011

If we had common sense gun laws.....I don't see that happening while the Mass Murderer Lobby (NRA) continues to make sure that it is easier to buy guns than liquor or cigarettes.

[hagenjr]

08:31 PM on 01/23/2011

maybe in your state but not mine. Maybe you oughta campaign to change your state laws if what you said is true.

I know its completely false however.

[Acebass]

03:46 PM on 01/23/2011

Love it, good and common sense in the same sentence....
"If we had a good health care system, if we had common sense gun laws, these people might be alive today. Like me."

Must be a liberal!

[Dr Scott]

12:00 PM on 01/23/2011

It will always be easier to get a gun than it will be to get mental health treatment. That's the nature of American culture. The Constitution protects our right to own guns, but provides no right to receive healthcare.

[northstar11]

10:04 AM on 01/23/2011

the hard heads dont understand the concept of "out of touch with reality" ---

they still want to debate if the afflicted person knew the difference between right and wrong

good health care system . better guns laws are two thirds of the solution --the other is a legal system that understands and reflects "out of touch with reality"

[mamababa]

09:57 AM on 01/23/2011

I dunno - it might have saved a lot of trees and minds - so the jury's probably still out on that.

[David John Toth]

08:39 AM on 01/23/2011

Our health care system does not provide adequate care for the mentally ill. While many conditions can be controlled with medication, the medications are very costly and out of range for most people. Most insurance policies provide only limited coverage. Dealing with afflicted family members can be difficult even with training. There is no way of knowing whether Erica Jong's first husband would have committed a violent act if he had access to a gun, but having experience with mentally family members, I would not take the chance by having a gun in the house. Under stressful conditions, certain family members have gone after each other with knives and broken bottles. Had they had a gun, it would have been much more difficult to disarm them, and it would have been much easier for them to do serious harm. As a society, I don't think we want to take the same chance.

[Malarkey]

06:55 AM on 01/23/2011

Okay: We must now begin a national Speak Up/Zero Tolerance movement when it comes to guns. We need to make guns socially unacceptable. It will take years but if we can do with guns what we did with cigarettes, that would be a start. Let's stamp out guns and the delusional thinking that helps propagate this endless violence.

[MrCbass]

10:10 AM on 01/23/2011

never going to happen

[Loobie]

02:34 PM on 01/23/2011

Why? Do you hunt? You are speaking of changing people's lives that you know nothing about. It makes no sense to you to ever have the thought of owning a gun. However, there are probably things you think are more commonplace that some of them have the same type of thoughts about. Live and let live man, don't push your desires on me. Zero tolerance of anything doesn't work and you know it, you just want more control over people you don't agree with/can't relate to.

[abetterplace]

06:49 AM on 01/23/2011

So, You have the ability to know what would have happened. You should run for congress.

[AKFALAR]

06:02 AM on 01/23/2011

Weird, so he couldn't have gotten a gun way back when? You write that as if our past was some kind of bucolic gun-free zone.

We all hear how marijuana users are so peaceful and never hurt anyone, but perhaps it was the marijuana itself that caused the psychosis.
Loughner, Kleibold, Harris, drug users, psychological diagnosis and I believe Harris and Loughner both were rejected to join the Military. OH and BTW, Marijuana use is on the gun purchase form! Time for a drug user/psychological disease database people. The Military got those guys right on the dot...