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Please focus on mental health issues, not guns

Earle K. Downes Ledyard

Publication: The Day

Published 03/12/2013 12:00 AM
Updated 03/11/2013 05:25 PM

Fifty year ago under the presidency of John F. Kennedy a new program funded by the federal government created mental-health centers to take the place of state mental hospitals. The federal take over of the mental illness treatment system was pretty much a failure. Approximately half of the mentally ill discharged from state mental hospitals who had family support sought treatment and have done well. The other half, many of who lack family support and suffer the most serious mental illnesses, have done poorly. Multiple studies summarized by the Treatment Advocacy Center find untreated mentally ill are responsible for 10 percent of all homicides (and higher percentage of mass killings) constitute 20 percentof jail and prison inmates and at least 30 percent of the homeless.

Let us stop all this gun control nonsense and focus on having a serious discussion on the problems of the mentally ill that will do more to prevent mass killings in the future. In the future a mass murder might decide to use a bomb or poison. What then, more gun control laws?

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