Do we want less gun violence, or don't we?

980+ mass shootings (defined by 4 or more dead, non-drug/gang/war related) in the US since Newtown. That says it all. And keep in mind that the vast majority of gun deaths do not occur in mass shootings, but the less-reported suicides and "regular" homicides.

http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/10/02/445379809/stuff-happens-comment-creates-firestorm-for-jeb-bush

And the typical tone-deaf, uncompassionate, guns-before-people response from GOP leaders (in this case, my favorite guy to hate, Jeb). Basically after a national tragedy relating to guns: "shit happens." But when Muslims attack us: "Bomb them to hell!" I hope Jeb's rivals and the MSM call him out on this.

http://gawker.com/you-dont-pass-a-pool-fencing-law-after-a-child-drowns-1734383068

Jeb is saying we shouldn't rush to impulse legislation after a tragedy. But after a kid fell and drowned in a pool in FL, Jeb's gov't rushed to create a pool fence law. Was that such a bad thing? How many people and pets were saved by that knee-jerk reaction? Like Kahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow," sometime you want to think fast for your survival. Don't let the trauma fade away so you delude yourself into thinking that it's not a big problem and it won't happen again.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/books/review/thinking-fast-and-slow-by-daniel-kahneman-book-review.html?_r=0

And for those who say it's a mental health issue and not a gun issue, I disagree. The vast majority of mentally ill or "weird loner" people are not violent. So unless you want to infringe on the rights of millions of innocents (in a Minority Report style preventative action), I don't see how this will help. Sure it's better safe than sorry to report to authorities if someone you know is concerning you, and those authorities have to respond to legit threats effectively (like how we're trying to deal with suicide prevention warning signs). Of course we as a society should pay more attention/resources to mental illness, hate ideology, and isolated youth. But it won't prevent most mass shootings.

Only locking up guns will do that. Some would say that the Oregon shooter purchased his guns legally and no bkgd. check would have blocked him. So maybe that's the problem: properly interpret the 2nd Amend. (how the courts did pre-NRA) and strictly limit private ownership of guns (or ammo, or both). Maybe people can still buy them, but must store them with 3rd party highly regulated gun locker companies (so it's not the evil gov't controlling our guns). In order to check out the guns, the owner has to be lojacked and have a witness legally vouch for their mental/emotional state. Maybe critics would say that such a system would leave us vulnerable to criminal attacks. Then buy a dog or mace, or support leaders/laws that address the root causes of crime like poverty, education, and racism.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/so-you-think-you-know-the-second-amendment

Alternatively, some people think that the gun culture in SUI "works" because of a deep tradition of safety and personal responsibility (hard to measure). Like how strongly Americans feel about personal freedoms (and football), if we placed a similar or larger emphasis on gun safety, peaceful conflict resolution, and accident prevention, then maybe we could have our guns but not the tragedies (but we have a long way to go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBIOJJkEQT4). Keep in mind that SUI's gun deaths per capita are still one of the highest in the 1st world too.

http://world.time.com/2012/12/20/the-swiss-difference-a-gun-culture-that-works/

Rodger and the UCSB murders

http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2014/05/26/amid-multiple-warning-signs-alleged-isla-vista-killer-slipped-through-system/
http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2017/05/27/legislation-santa-barbara-shootings/

It seems like we have this conversation every few months. The press and social media are active as usual, with a WP commentator even insinuating that Judd Apatow movies are to blame for Rodger's unrealistic expectations for his sex life (like how video games were behind Adam Lanza, and Marilyn Manson led to Columbine).

Most people are dismissing Rodger as just "crazy". He was diagnosed with mild autism but was not on any drugs. However, if all of us got thorough psych evals, I am sure over half of us would register something. After reading some of his "manifesto", he doesn't strike me as deranged or irrational. He of course carefully planned the rampage and kept his composure enough to convince the sheriff's dept. that he was not a threat. Personally, I think this case is more about Rodger's morals/socialization than mental illness. Unfortunately, perfectly sane people can hurt and kill others, as long as their worldview/values/ideology are compatible.

Most people in society realize that they need to address grievances lawfully, and don't have the right to be judge and executioner over perceived injustices. Teaching kids to have grit is popular these days too. At a basic level, kids may have better life outcomes if they learn to handle adversity without having egotistical victim complex and homicidal vengeance like Rodger. That is obvious. So parenting and communication could have made a difference. And then there is the cultural angle, especially among college-aged people where hormone-driven sexual assaults are outrageously high. Young men are bombarded by ludicrous messages that they are losers if they do not bed hot babes every week, no means yes, it's always someone else's fault, and so on. Fortunately better judgment and morals usually win out in the public space.

But most of us are subject to the misogynist culture, and most of us don't rape or kill. Most mentally ill people or gun owners don't either. So what is the key variable that separates mass killers from the rest of us? A tragic combination of these and bad luck? If we can't isolate the personal/social causes and take preventative measures, then the next best thing is limiting the ability of murderous people to access weapons.

Gun ownership rates are correlated with gun murders. The NRA would say causation is reversed - people need to own guns in those places because they live in dangerous places. But a reader on the KQED blog made a good point - instead of (or in addition to) the sheriff interviewing Rodger, could they check the database to see if he owns guns, and whether he bought them recently? For decades the NRA has blocked access to info like that, which has infuriated the public and law enforcement alike. Felons can't own guns, even if they didn't commit a violent crime. So why can a moody 14 year old, alcoholic, or a bipolar person legally own a gun? Some would argue that half of Rodger's victims died by knife. But that is just an anecdote - guns kill way more people than knives each year.

Crazy like us: America's exporting of mental health

The quake reminded me of a recent thing I read:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10psyche-t.html?ref=magazine
http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R201001110900

This journalist studied how America is exporting our "scientific" views on mental health to the rest of the world, and not always for the better. After the big Asian tsunami, a bunch of "white, upper-middle class" trauma counselors went to Sri Lanka and Aceh to console the locals. The author said that it's the purest form of American hubris to think that comfortable, complacent suburbanites can explain grief to poor people who have lived with war for decades. I know they mean well, but it is somewhat ridiculous. And I'm sure they will try again in Haiti.

Other highlights from his book:

- The author's main thesis is that America is exporting its views on mental health to the world, and actually homogenizing the way humans approach the subject. This is troubling because (1) the American way has its share of flaws and (2) the supplanting of older, local, EFFECTIVE beliefs on the psyche with modern American science has negative consequences, and also results in a loss of precious cultural knowledge. Instead, he thinks we should learn more and teach less, and cherry-pick what works best in various situations instead of completely relying on the American way. Like how herbal and Eastern medicine are popular when Western medicine fails, we should consider alternative approaches to mental health too.

- Clinical depression was very rarely diagnosed in Japan before the year 2000. People just dealt with their sadness privately, and didn't consider it a preventable disease. But then Glaxo-Smith-Kline wanted to sell more of their anti-depressants to the #2 economy, and started a major media campaign to Japanese doctors and such. Now Japanese consume over $1B/year in anti-depressants, yet suicides, happiness indices, and such are not any better.

- Anorexia was very rarely diagnosed in Hong Kong (and when it was, the symptoms were different than Ameican anorexia), but then there was a well-publicized death of an emaciated young woman in 1994. After that, curious media sources wanted to research the disease, and consulted the American psychological reference DSM-IV. By explaining what anorexia was (in the Western view at least), it got many women thinking that that they were afflicted. Eating disorder cases rose over 1000% by 1999, with 3-10% of young women showing some manifestations, this time perfectly in lock-step with the American definition.

- Strangely, with all our resources, "compassion", and science, a 30-year global WHO study showed that schizophrenics have a much lower relapse rate outside of the US and Western Europe, even in very poor nations with no available drug treatments. They attribute this mostly to culture: other "primitive" nations believe in superstitions suggesting that mental disease is not the patient's fault (evil spirits, curse, etc.), and in fact the community has a duty to support the sufferer and drive out the evil. Wheres in the West, we believe in the self-made man, and we believe that we are fully in control of our bodies. If we are sick in the head and not getting better, then we're not trying hard enough. So hovering, meddling relatives often judge and pressure schizos to improve. They think it helps, but it actually increases the chance of relapse. So the author is not saying that we should dismiss science and believe in demonic possession, but the ends can justify the means. If it works better (and costs a lot less) for them, then maybe their way has some value.

- You've all heard of those prison experiments where a subject will hurt a stranger (or thinks he/she is) under various stimuli. Researchers set up a study where a subject would administer a test on a person with mental illness either caused by genetics or by childhood trauma. If the ill person faltered, the subject would have the option to apply an electric shock of varying magnitude. It turns out subjects shocked the "genetically ill" patients harder than the "childhood trauma" ones. Science has tried to uncover genetic causes for various mental illnesses (but hasn't done a very good job so far). They believe that it will reduce the stigma of mental health if the causes are shown to be out of the patient's control. Like homosexuality is not a choice, but just nature. Well, the electric shock study showed that people are actually less compassionate to the mentally ill if they think their condition is genetic rather than social. So are we doing more harm than good?

- Manifestations of mental stress are very local and culturally dependent. Southeast Asia has a syndrome called "amok" (hence the term "run amok") where a young male will go on a violent rage and not remember anything. Victorian England saw many women exhibit "dead legs" and fear of paralysis when actually there was nothing wrong with their legs. This was possibly their subconscious responding to cultural pressures making women into fragile, inferior dolls to be kept by men. I wonder if modern American afflictions (PTSD, bipolar, ADHD, OCD, obesity, the list goes on and on!) are also our subconscious lashing out at social pressures that we can't deal with. We claim we are tough and we can deal, but obviously it's not the case. It's easy to say that it's just genetic and then pop a pill to fix it, instead of carefully examine possible cultural causes of these behaviors. Why is it that US soldiers are experiencing PTSD more frequently than foreign fighters in much nastier warfare situations? Maybe over-eating is a response to all the fast food media and rebelling against the health craze. Maybe ADHD is just bad parenting and a glut of distracting stimuli for youth. Maybe OCD cleanliness and home beautification are the result of all the germophobic paranoia in the mainstream, and the "house porn" on HGTV and such.