Guns and Mental Illness

These four texts from NPR, Bluereview, and The New York Times all take varying opinions on the best preventative measure towards mass shootings that have been occurring in the United States exuberantly for the bast two decades; in the four articles, though having varying opinions, they all discuss mental illnesses and violence. The New York Time's article written by Wendy Button speaks of her own personal experiences dealing with depression and the want to buy a gun; she then resolves to never get one and that citizens in the United States should not be able to obtain guns at all or at least so easily. A similar personal narrative titled I am Adam Lanza's Mother emotionally narrates the story of her son Michael who deals with severe mental illness and speaks of the numerous times he has threatened to kill her and himself. She, not wanting to send him to jail but not wanting her son to hurt himself or others, desperately asks the United States to not focus on the 2nd Amendment but instead the treatment of the mentally ill and the lack of it. This is than reemphasized in the NPR interview with her actual son Michael. Of the last article from New York Times titled Guns and Mental Illness it takes a very similar stance to that of the Bluereview article where there should be more treatment for mentally ill patients: more institutions, less prisons, more care for patients. In the article, it emphasizes how the severally mentally ill are just sent to prisons to receive adequate care. All the articles believe that good treatment should be given to patients such as Michael's Mother wants for her son and Joe Nocera writer of Guns and Mental Illness wants for the United States, but the article Please Take My Right to a Gun Away believes that guns should be banned entirely.

Readying the articles, I was joyfully enlightened by the diverse amount of information on the treatment of the mentally ill today; through this I was able to make a relatively similar opinion on mental illness as seen in the articles. I believe that there should be more institutions in the United States and in addition these institutions should provide adequate care to there patients. As seen in every single article, they emphasize the fact that the mentally ill won't necessarily want to hurt others but will if in the wrong mind set could; as seen in the article Please Take Away My Right To a Gun, she didn't necessarily want to kill herself at that moment when she had a drunk man at her door, but later that month she was depressed and wanted to commit suicide due to her extreme depression. In more extreme cases, this suicide could be a mass murder as seen with Adam Lanza. This unpredictability should be contained and even improved in institutions with correct diagnoses and help.

Though not mentioned in the three other articles, the article Please Take Away My Right To a Gun takes a strong stand point against gun availability to citizen's in the United States which I strongly believe in also. In the United States, gun availability is excessive and relatively unregulated which for me has been a big cause of the regular mass shootings happening in the United States. In addition to the institutionalization of the mentally ill, I believe that guns should be strongly regulated like in Europe where the only people with guns are hunters and officers. This will not only prevent the mentally ill from going on a murdering rampages but also to prevent unstable citizens from committing regrettable crimes in fits of rage.

Of all the articles, I found the New York Times text titled Guns and Mental Illness  the most intriguing. In the article, I found this passage of the text the most interesting, "The article I wrote was about how the "deinstitutionalization movement" of the 1960s and early 1970s --a movement prompted by the same liberal impulses that gave us civil rights and women's rights-- had become a national disgrace". In school, I have heard a plethora of stories from the women's rights movement and the civil rights movement yet until this article, I have never herd of the "deinstitutionalization movement". It seems that this "national disgrace" has not been talked about much and on the contrary has been ignored and left to fall apart. This falling apart is occurring right now, and it seems nothing has been done to fix it yet.  
    

Comparison of "The New Asylums" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"

In "The New Asylums" documentary, the portrayal of mental illness is a lot different than in the book "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" but the opinions on the treatment of patients are the same. As seen in the documentary, you can tell that there is a major flaw in the treatment of mentally ill patients today. Over the years institutions have closed down in the United Stated forcing mentally ill patients to be admitted to jails --without these institutions, patients ended up committing crimes and going to prisons--; in the 2005 American's jails, as stated in 'The New Asylums' documentary, 16% of the prisoners were considered mentally ill. Psychiatric patients are not suited for jail environment and only receive inadequate care in these negative environments. Being forced to follow strict jail protocol only worsens the health of mentally ill patient.  Major flaws like these are strongly represented in the documentary. Mistreatment of patients is also represented in the book. The author personifies the mistreatment of patients through the eyes of the character Chief Bromden; as narrated in the first 30 pages, patients were forced to go through electric shock therapy bringing about negative effects: side effects consisting of deteriorating mental health, constant seizures, and the change in personalities.

Also, both in the book and the documentary, the patients showed resentment towards their institutionalization, and these patients were constantly being disregarded in their treatment. In both depictions, the workers and patients all have to follow the same motto: follow the rules, you'll be fine, but if you don't, severe actions will be taken. In the documentary, whenever prisoners would react in ways appropriate to their disease but not according to the jail rules, jail officers would use force to isolate the insane prisoner worsening the prisoner's health. In "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" ward, even though patients were given specific treatment for their diseases, whenever a patient asked questions or tried to do things outside of the Big Nurse's guidelines, the Nurse would either take severe action such as sending them to the disturbed ward or punishing them in her own ways. In both cases, the patients only spoke negatively of their experiences seen in the documentary through interviews of patients and in the book, through Chief's narration.