Sandy Hook elementry

[Cherry_Iceee]

Im curious about everyones thoughts on the most current massacre. I believe the deep issue is the mental health of people and of people like the killer.
I also think it has alot to do with how disconnected we have become with our children family and friends. Sure we all own cell phones and pcs and we all have emails. Supposedly these things were designed to keep us closer but in reality its keeping us further apart. Kids do not have to have friends over so they can play video games they can play together online. How often have you been stuck in traffic and you call your other half and you each chat about your day? By the time you get home you dont have anything to talk about face to face. How often have you seen or done for that matter take the kids on errands and the adult is on the phone and the kids are in the backseat with a dvd? We are so connected we are disconnected.
Did we lose all value for human life by making people nothing more than a screen name? How often do families even watch tv together in the same room. Again i say we are soooo connected we are disconnected.
When did we lose the value of treat others like we want to be treated. The internet is full of people doing dispicable things to others. I grew up in the eighties. I know my parents would of beat me for those things and or done the same things to me to teach me how it felt. When did we lose empathy for
each other. I always related to the columbine killers. I had loads of empathy for them. At the time i was the same age as them still in school and very lost. Do we blame the parents? I dont think so because once your children leave your care they become the worlds and not necessary the ones you raised to be good.
I dont think guns are the issue ever. Look at how many people have guns the powerful guns all used in the murders and how few shootings there really is with those. Its a small percentage compared to how many own them. If weapons were the case then are we going to outlaw the rope? The BTK killer liked to hang or choke his victims with a rope? How bout the ones who kill with knives? It all boils down what sort of nut gets his hands on a weapon. Most things can be weapons.
I know once we reach 18 we are considered adults and there's little we can do for the mentally ill with out their consent. I think we really need to get rrid of the stigma of mental illlness. That just because we have few problems. In our brains doesn't mean we aren't human beings with a lot to offer the world. Nor that because we are a bit off we are going to go out and kill everything that moves. There's ssuch a stigma about it because that is all we hear about it is the very bad the very worse. This podcast is one of the few that's out there that shows we are not alone we are not all going to go out and kill some one. We are offered hope and understanding here. And it sheds light on issues that are only skimmed over or get stigmatized by media and everyone else.
I also think the media is insane and has to sensationalize everything or its not reported if it can't be sensationalized. That kid that committed suicide here whileback cause his roommate filmed him secretly doing things with another man. Had he been heterosexual that would have never made the news. I'm amashed to admit the first time I read about it they had not released he was doing things with a other man. My first thought was is he gay. Then I realized. Omg I don't need to know that the public doesn't need to know that. And I hoped they never released that. They totally sensationalized that. Its dispicable how the media has hounded the people in connecticut. How they have probably hounded the victims families for interviews. And how they have covered most minuite details of it. Making a good blue print for the next person to do. It and do it better. The media can be good but they can be horribly intrusive and insensetive. In their own time the victims families will speak and if they don't they should have that right. And not be hounded.
I just was curious what everyone was feeling with this

[meh]

My feelings about the whole thing are prejudiced by the fact that I'm about a half hour drive from Newtown. We don't know anyone there but we have friends in the surrounding communities. Everyone has been on edge - there were school lockdowns on Monday due to unsubstantiated rumors of a man with a gun near the Ridgefield train station.

And what's really freaking me out is that this guy and his heavily armed Mom lived five minutes away from some of our friends.

I'm a little (a lot) troubled by the whole mental health angle and the calls for mental health screening. Are they going to create a list of anyone who's under care for a mental illness? What constitutes a mental illness? Who's the judge? How would they secure this information so Billy Bob at the gun shop doesn't tell everyone about John boy who wanted to buy an AR 15 and is taking Wellbutrin?

Speaking from my own head (bipolar, rapid cycling, tendency towards major depressive episodes...) I don't think anyone with my condition(s) would buy a gun for any other reason than to use it on themselves. I also don't think anyone who's hypomanic or manic has the capacity to do that much planning for a mass killing.

Black Humor Alert - if it were me... I'd head out to the school / mall / movie theater, decide at the last minute that I really want to learn to build web sites, go back home and spend the rest of the day on Amazon buying every book I can find on HTML.

But ... I also feel that here in the US we don't have a system in place for identifying and treating people who need treatment but don't - for whatever reason. Actually, we have a great system - we call it jail. And that's where most cases of untreated mental illness end up. So if one of the outcomes is more attention (and money) spent on building a better mental health care system, that would be a good thing.