When you think of America, you may think of Washington’s mighty monuments, our diverse landscapes, our pride in country, a cheeseburger, or you may think of our obsession with firearms. Our love of gun powder is one that runs deep, so deep that it is engraved into The Constitution, the very law that defined our existence as a nation on this great blue planet called Earth. As our nation has grown over the years, we have seen the gun debate catch fire, splitting our nation in two between pro-gun activists and anti-gun lobbyists. Although anti-gun supporters have valid reason to be concerned with America’s love of guns, it is often noted that their arguments will not breach to the core of the issues in America, which is mental illness and the increase of illegal firearms within our borders.
To better understand the pro-gun opinion, we must first tackle the main points of the anti-gun plea. The first being the number of gun crimes in America, although it is still tragic that in 2014 we still see mothers burying their sons, the estimated 480,000 crimes is not quite one-third of the 1.5 million gun crimes we saw in the year 1994. Also, we see the majority of these crimes happening in urban areas, where there are stricter gun laws. Even with the gun bans, Chicago tops the charts for the year 2014 having 1,129 victims of gun crime as of July 4th, 2014. To put to rest the fact that the homicide rate has dropped by a mere 5 percent, the shootings have increased and continue to increase as time goes on. (Guns, 2014) Not only this, but the majority of the guns used in these crimes were obtained illegally.
A major argument for the anti-gun movement is that as increased legal gun ownership occurs, more crime is committed with those legally purchased firearms. However, only 10 percent of gun crimes were committed with a firearm that was purchased legally. There has been a reported decline of 49 percent in homicides, with a 75 percent reduction in non-fatal crimes involving a firearm.(BJS) The year of 2012 proves this as we saw a record 19.6 million background checks with the intent to purchase a firearm.(Forbes, 2014) This leaves only the notion that there is another reason for these crimes being committed. As mentioned, only 10 percent of the annual crime rate involves a legally purchased firearm, while 40 percent of these crimes are committed with a firearm that was acquired illegally.(BJS) With these major arguments put to rest, we can now focus on the core issue, which is our nation’s increase in mental illness cases.
When these points are set aside, it is often noted that the next argument for anti-gun lobbyists will be the amount of mass public shootings. What is often left out is the sad reality that our nation is plagued by mental illness. It is often found after the fact that those who picked up the gun had at the very least, showed signs of mental illness. Elliot Rodgers is a good example, as he was in the care of several mental health professionals when he decided to viciously kill 6 innocent people. This may lie in the number of people that will have a psychotic break every 30 days. According to the CDC, at least 3 individuals will have a serious psychotic meltdown every 30 days.(CDC) It is not hard to speculate that individuals such as Elliot Rodgers, Adam Lanza, and James Holmes may have suffered from an instance like this and felt the only way to stop it would be to kill someone. To further add to this, the mental illness plaque sadly runs deeper.
Further understanding of America’s mental illness issue lies in the small details. According to the CDC, 38 million Americans suffer from a mental illness, and 10 million suffering from a serious mental illness. According to the CDC, in 2010 for every 10,000 short term hospital stay discharges 1.7(we will round to 2) individuals were diagnosed with schizophrenia. 8.9(we will round to 9) people were discharged with psychosis. Furthermore, 2.7(we will round to 3) were diagnosed with major depressive disorder. By these findings, for every 100,000 persons in our country, 20 of them suffer from schizophrenia, 30 of them suffer from major depressive disorder, and 90 suffer from psychosis.(CDC) Although this describes the outstanding numbers of mental illness cases, it also shows how these illnesses have caused crime.
Mental illness causes crime as 1.2 million of our nation’s inmates suffer from a serious mental illness, inmates often attributing their choices to such illnesses. At Chicago’s cook county jail, alone, there are 12,000 inmates with a serious mental illness. According to Cook Country Sherriff Tom Dart, “One of those inmates was a “chronic self-mutilator” who has been arrested more than 100 times, ringing up more than $1 million in repeated arrest- and detention-related costs.” (USA Today, 2014) If we had a broader acknowledgment of issues like these, inmates like these could be sent to mental health facilities on their first attempt, leaving the funds that would have been spent to be used in more useful ways such as finding and getting rid of our nation’s illegal weapons. It could even be used to fund a better mental health system, and we could strengthen our chances of catching a homicidal person before they have a chance to commit the crime.
Again, any crime involving a gun is a disgrace to our nation, and it would be fair to say that both sides of the argument want the same outcome, which it not to lose another member of our society to these heinous crimes. Instead of dividing amongst what we believe the issues are, we must follow the facts. There is a common saying that “guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” and we must acknowledge that it is not the tools fault, it is the tool’s handler who is at fault. Even in this, we cannot fully blame a person if they are under influence of adverse thinking, but we can blame those who are responsible for not noticing, and not providing the care that is desperately needed. Crime will live forever, as it always has, but we can begin to educate our civilization on noticing the signs and providing better and more easily obtained mental health care. One thing is for certain, we must discontinue the tradition of banding together in the wake of a tragedy and get back to the tradition of banding together to prevent tragedy.
1) Is Chicago’s violence improving? Some say yes as homicide rate decreases from last year. (n.d.). Guns . Retrieved July 21, 2014, from http://www.guns.com/2014/07/07/is-chicagos-violence-improving-some-say-yes-as-homicide-rate-decreases-from-last-year/
2) Bureau of Justice Statistics Firearm Violence, 1993�2011. (n.d.). Bureau of Justice Statistics Firearm Violence, 1993�2011. Retrieved July 21, 2014, from http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/press/fv9311pr.cfm
3) Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). (n.d.). Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Retrieved July 19, 2014, from http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4616
4) Disarming Realities: As Gun Sales Soar, Gun Crimes Plummet. (n.d.). Forbes Magazine. Retrieved July 21, 2014, from http://www.blogs.forbes.com/larrybell/?p=3855
5) Serious Psychological Distress. (n.d.). Center for Disease Control. Retrieved July 21, 2014, from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/earlyrelease201312_13.pdf
6) Number and Rate of Short Term Discharges. (n.d.). Center for Disease Control. Retrieved July 21, 2014, from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhds/2average/2010ave2_firstlist.pdf
7) Mental illness cases swamp criminal justice system. (2014, July 21). USA Today. Retrieved July 21, 2014, from http://www.usatoday.com/longform/news/nation/2014/07/21/mental-illness-law-enforcement-cost-of-not-caring/9951239/
Liberty Is A Lifestyle 