My phone woke me up Monday morning, notifying me that, as a nationally certified EMT, I was placed on standby for the District. Apparently there was a shooting at the Navy Yard earlier that morning and local authorities were searching for two other suspects in addition to Aaron Alexis, who had a history of mental illness.
The symptom “altered mental status” is something first responders deal with daily, whether it’s from a head injury, bodily trauma, shock, or diabetes. It is a way your physical maladies are expressed by your brain, even if there is no injury directly to it. First responders are also trained to handle patients suffering from mental illness. These are cases seen on every shift, and EMTs don’t judge those patients. But, especially recently, mass shooters have a tendency for mental illness. These tragedies have become so common that some news outlets don’t bother to report on them anymore. President Obama can comfortably refer to it as “yet another mass shooting.”
Mental illness is not a prerequisite for gun violence. Saying so would introduce an unfair stereotype that would be counterproductive. Someone should never be ashamed of being mentally ill, but the trend can’t be ignored. The Virginia Tech massacre, the Newtown school tragedy, and the Aurora shooting were all conducted by mentally unstable people who fell through the cracks of our dilapidated mental healthcare system.
Even if both sides of the political spectrum can’t agree on tighter gun control laws, they must acknowledge that doctors are missing or outright ignoring signs that patients may become violent. And somehow we are allowing the sale of guns to these citizens.
According to a recent New York Times article, Aaron Alexis, now known to be the sole shooter, called the police because he heard voices a month before the shooting. Alexis had a history filled with red flags that included past gun violence and a discharge from the military, and yet he was able to obtain a security clearance and buy a shotgun. His infractions and outbursts always fell slightly below what would’ve warranted serious punishment. No red flags were detected in the granting of his clearance or the purchase of his weapon simply because the system was not constructed to consider such infractions as a potentiality for violence in the future.
If we can’t agree on what the Second Amendment means, let us at least address how we are selling guns in this country. Alexis had a checkered history of mental health issues and violence, but he could buy a gun because he never received a felony and mental health laws restricting the sale of weapons are incredibly lenient. Let us at least devise a system that can help inhibit the sale of weapons to people whose mental state might make them a potential threat. The system should be restructured so that it can pick up on the red flags it currently can’t detect.
Though the sale of weapons doesn’t wholly prevent someone from obtaining a weapon, Democrats will be satisfied that there are new gun control measures, and Republicans can be satisfied that, so long as they are not considered an unstable threat, they can still buy and own guns.
If we can get to the point where our own president expresses his concern that mass shootings have become a commonplace “ritual we go through” every few months, then we are not putting in enough effort to solve the problem. A violent shooting within a military facility that ends in 13 deaths should never be something we talk about casually.
Mass gun violence isn’t something we can erase after the fact with supplemental oxygen or a tourniquet. It is not a routine run, or a patient’s symptom, or an illness. It is largely the result of a system that fails to adequately treat sick citizens and prevent them from becoming a harm to themselves and others.
This time the mass shooting happened on our doorstep. If you’re a Hoya, a District first responder, or a politician on Capitol Hill, the Navy Yard shooting should have shoved your attention toward the gun control issue. On Monday, the bloodshed was in my EMS jurisdiction, and it was anything other than ordinary.
Interesting choice of words: “President Obama can comfortably refer to it as ‘yet another mass shooting.'” Comfortably?