Comments

1
Mental health people! We need better mental health care, and the mentally ill cannot be allowed to opt out. Every one of these shooters has proven to be a loon. A loon that was known to be a loon. We need to be able to institutionalize these people before they kill. Not wait until it’s too late.
2
What I hear often is how much people refuse to seek mental treatment despite urging from friends/family, and a lot of that is because of the stigma associated with it, such as those that stem from reactionary comments like "throw them all into the bin!" Let's be a little less ostentatious in our reactions, perhaps?
3
@1 mental health does need to be taken more seriously, but it's the stigma people like you create by calling names like loon that may stop people from getting the help they need.... Among other factors too...
4
I'm a mental health therapist, and as such I can say that one of the biggest obstacles we face in getting people to commit to treatment is overcoming stigma. Maybe if we stop referring to the mentally I'll as 'loons'...
5
"and the mentally ill cannot be allowed to opt out." "We need to be able to institutionalize these people before they kill."

Who makes the decision as to mental illness? Untrained friends and family? Vengeful ex boyfriends? Some prankster who thinks its funny?

How would we implement what you're suggesting? How would we protect against such a policy being abused?
6
Why has the language suddenly changed to "after allegedly opening fire"? Isn't it 100% cut-and-dried that he did, in fact, open fire? He was tackled and arrested after shooting people - how can there be any doubt (it's not like he was sniping people from far away and nobody actually saw him pull the trigger - didn't he walk into a lobby, talk to some people, and then shoot them?)
7
Why has the language suddenly changed to "after allegedly opening fire"? Isn't it 100% cut-and-dried that he did, in fact, open fire? He was tackled and arrested after shooting people - how can there be any doubt (it's not like he was sniping people from far away and nobody actually saw him pull the trigger - didn't he walk into a lobby, talk to some people, and then shoot them?)

And, to be clear - this is a tragedy, and very sad for everyone (including the shooter). I'm just curious as to why the reporting language suddenly seems wishy-washy on what I thought was an established fact.
8
Mental illness is like any other illness except it effects the brain which controls our being. Calling names is not going to lead to a solution or cure. People who have Alzheimer's or dementia at times have mental illness attached. We support and seek treatment for them without cut downs. If another organ was ill we would be supportive and at times donating to help or find a cure but mental illness is cut down and ridiculed. If we truly want change let's end the stigma and be more encouraging of mental health care.

I understand the fear of being accused mentally ill. I see no harm a person having a check up. Some mental illnesses a person doesn't see in them self just as cancers can be sneaky. Remove the stigma. Mental illness is truly an illness. Nothing to be ashamed of. Treated ones quality of life improves and so do those around them.
9
Mental illness is like any other illness except it effects the brain which controls our being. Calling names is not going to lead to a solution or cure. People who have Alzheimer's or dementia at times have mental illness attached. We support and seek treatment for them without cut downs. If another organ was ill we would be supportive and at times donating to help or find a cure but mental illness is cut down and ridiculed. If we truly want change let's end the stigma and be more encouraging of mental health care.

I understand the fear of being accused mentally ill. I see no harm a person having a check up. Some mental illnesses a person doesn't see in them self just as cancers can be sneaky. Remove the stigma. Mental illness is truly an illness. Nothing to be ashamed of. Treated ones quality of life improves and so do those around them.
10
@6/7 My interpretation is that because Ybarra, up to this point is officially only a suspect, the "allegedly" is more in reference to Ybarra's status of "not proven guilty" than whether were there gun shots.
11
Wow, I'm surprised the so many people are doing the right thing and saying that mental illness doesn't make people less than human. The stigma of mental illness is awful and should be done away with. Just as someone isn't less than human for having cancer, someone isn't less than human for having a mental disorder.

Hell, I'm a libertarian, but I'd be okay with the government spending more money on mental health (just take the money we waste on the war on drugs to do it instead of raising taxes)

Funny that this guy obsessed over the Columbian shooting. The only good part about that stupid Michael Moore movie was the interview with Marlyn Manson. He asked Manson what he would have said to the shooters if he could, and he answered "I wouldn't have said anything. I would have listened. And that's what no one did."
12
Money and stigma. Mental illness care for people with incomes, any income, is out of reach and at best a band aid on a cancer. There may be some free and cheap programs for the extremely low/no income folks, but nothing skilled or intensive enough to make a difference.

In many of these cases the gunmen DID indeed have years of "the best mental health care" the financially stable parents could afford, and clearly it didn't stop them. Some people are beyond rehabilitation. That's when we consider euthanasia of folks too far gone, for the better of the herd, many of them would gladly opt for it. Otherwise, institutionalization until/if they're ever considered no longer a significant threat to themselves or others.

If you're going off the deep end, you should be able to walk into a hospital and know your bills & home will remain on hold and paid for, your job will exist when you're back on your feet and you can get free treatment. This applies to the kind of shooter who's personal life is falling apart, can't make ends meet, the wife left, etc etc..someone who normally holds it together but the pressure of not being able to walk away from it all and regroup gets to be too intense.

It doesn't work like that, though.. decent intensive mental health programs cost thousands out of pocket, even for the insured you quickly run out of "cheap" appointments per year ($20-50 a session, then becomes $100-200 each.. not doable). As to the applaudable programs for the low income (great for low grade depression or someone in a slump after a hard time) a $15 a week therapy appointment isn't going to cut the mustard (and plenty of us don't have an extra $60 a month anyhow)...but that's the only option for a poor person with mental health needs, and again..even the best care often makes little difference. Complaining about a jacked up brain to a person making $100+ an hour does little to help your life feel any better. Then of course there's the bevy of questionable pharmaceuticals that we constantly see blamed as a potential catalyst in actually making the unstable person, snap.

It's time for an overhaul of the system, to take from these other countries folks tout as not having the US violence problems that we do surrounding healthcare, criminals & mental illness... a system that allows people to gain the skills necessary to lead successful lives, instead of a bunch of useless "chin up, you can do it" psycho babble with a taxi meter running up a bill in the background.

13
How do we make sure being able to institutionalize people doesn't get abused, it's a great question. It requires several independent evaluations from experts, a criminal history check and statements from coworkers/classmates and family. So one or two bitter people can't just get someone locked up.
14
@1 I know you love being simple minded but you've got to ask yourself, what part of my comment is remotely libertarian? Because you've lost that one. Lastly before you throw everyone 'crazy' into a 'safe place' don't forgot thirty years ago that would've included gay people.
15
As a preface, maybe a test for a gun license should be part of demonstrating mental stability. But let's be careful.

I wouldn't want to live in a small town in the South and be black and have my local (white) sheriff be part of deciding who was "crazy" and a "loon" (so I wouldn't be able to buy a shotgun.)

Laugh if you want - & do it privately, friend - but let's not make it so easy for asshole authority figures to decide others' mental state. And yes that includes "trained" mental health professionals.

Or let's change the facts. You are gay and you live in some asshole area. Do you really want local bigots to be able to characterize you as a loon? "Oh him. He's nuts. He talks funny. Likes to read too." As I recall, it used to be that gays were by definition crazy. Lots of people still think so.

And you do remember that in the USSR people were marginalized as "mentally unstable"? I'd be cautious about Authority making decisions about who is mentally-fit.

We might have to decide on mental fitness at the extremes, but let's not jump into "No shotgun unless you are 'normal.' ' You think that many people on Slog are 'normal'? Guess again.
16
In a similar case from 2012, a police report said officers found Ybarrra lying in the middle of the street and said he wanted a SWAT team to get him and “make him famous.”
17
I'd think (and this is purely conjecture on my part) a key component of better mental treatment is that we are able to provide help to people at an early/earlier stage, much like treating various injuries and diseases is more effective early rather than late.

Again, part of that is curbing the stigma behind mental illnesses so that we go seek treatment at early stages instead of "no, I'm just a little ____, I don't need a doc," with the idea being the earlier we treat patients, the less we reach a point where we need to decide if someone needs to be committed or not.
18
@15

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/05…

What the fuck Texas. What the fucking fuck.
19
@16
And that's the bottom line NO ONE is talking about: The media makes these people superstars. Want instant fame? Just commit a mass shooting. And of course the Stranger gives the shooter exactly what he wanted.

If the major news agencies tomorrow decided to no longer give out the name or pictures of these shooters than these things would stop. Want a finger to point at in regards to gun violence, Stranger writers? Point it at yourselves. Stop making instant celebrities out of these shooters and they wont do this as often.
20
When a family knows a family member has mental health problems, they have a moral obligation, a heavy moral responsibility to secure that relative's firearms, if they have any. Take them away. Lock them up where the troubled person can't get to them.

I know nothing about where Mr. Ybarra got his firearms or where they were kept. But I want to know, and I assume that part of the story will come out in due time.
21
I find the tone of the Seattle PD to be remarkable (if we're dealing with mental health issues, the Ybarra's have lot a son as well). I'm not certain we would have heard that from a SPD briefing 5 years ago.
22
@20, do you mother, father, brother, sister have keys to your place? One out of the four do, and I can guarantee that they don't think there are firearms in my house when there are. Now, I'm reasonably sane (I have my moments, but you work customer service for 25 years and tell me you are 'sane' all the time). So if I lose my shit (please don't worry, I'm speaking hypothetically here, I'm fine folks) and went on a rampage, I don't think it's fair that my family is now seen as culpable. I'm just trying to illustrate how we may not all know everything about our loved ones, amd I hope you don't feel attacked by me, I just wanted to point out a differing viewpoint.
23
Another whiney loser in life decides to take out others rather than do us all a favor and just blow his own brains out. Fuck him.
24
I wish we, as family members, could help remove guns from our loved ones who are mentally ill, but it's almost impossible to do so, with the laws as they are presently written.
A few years back I had to address the fact that my elderly father, suffering from dementia and partial BLINDNESS, was waving his guns around in the house in a very dangerous fashion. The police came but said that the guns couldn't be removed, as no laws had been broken. We later snuck his guns out and told him they had been taken to be "cleaned".

Don't know how the family members would have stopped the legal adult in this situation from owning guns.
25
@9:
Nothing to be ashamed of.
...unless you live in the real world where admitting mental illness makes people think you might flip out and kill them, makes people less likely to date you, makes people less likely to rent to you, makes people less likely to hire you, and makes people suggest that you need to be locked up for the safety of society. Nothing to be worried about here.
26
@5
We managed to do it just fine until the 70s.
27
@26: Warehouses and lobotomies. No due process.

Just out of curiosity, if you support those old methods, would you support just gassing the mentally ill? Wouldn't that be consistent with the fact that you think they are just 'defectives' who need to be removed from society and that they aren't actual human beings who have legal rights?
28
I cannot legally own a firearm in the State of Illinois. Why? Because I was admitted to a mental institution (briefly and officially "voluntarily"). If I want to regain eligibility for firearms ownership, I need to go before a judicial board and present evidence (probably testimony from a mental health professional) that I am not a danger to myself or others.
I believe that's as good a model as any for dealing with the intersection of mental illness and gun policy.
29
Stunning letter to Aaron Ybarra from someone who knew him -

http://adriannaangel88.blogspot.com/2014…
30
@ 5, 15, & 22 - WORD.
Or, AMEN if you prefer.
31
@28
I would support that but only if they differentiated between dangerous mental disorders and non dangerous ones. Someone with a cluster A or C personality disorder, while we may be weird, aren't dangerous just because of a personality disorder. But someone with a more dangerous mental illness is.

I agree people who have a history of severe mental illness may need to be restricted from buying a gun unless they get an all clear from a doctor, but at the same tine having something like social anxiety, which is technically a mental illness, shouldn't stop someone from being able to get a hunting rifle.
32
@31: Don't talk about how anxiety can't make people dangerous and unhinged. You don't know it like I do. If it's something that you arguably need to be institutionalized for, it's worth worrying about with regard to firearms.
33
Some one's only sibling, both parents & remaining grandparents all die within 18 months ( natural causes, but still traumatizing). The person overwhelmed with grief is labeled as depressed and told they need medication - only medication is offered. Or medication and group therapy filled largely with confused housewives only vaguely unsure about "what's wrong". When the person insists that overwhelming grief is a normal response to what has happened, and requests grief counseling, they are told grief is not a "covered" illness and booted out the door. They commit suicide. This has happened. We need a system of health care that includes both CARE and mental health Care....
34
@27
Where is your faith in Government???
Surely they could administer it all in all of our best interest.
Liberals trust it to regualte everything else, why not mental health?

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