Address beliefs, prejudices, mental health
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Editor,
According to an LA Times report, from 1984 to 2016 the 10 worst mass shootings in America have killed 217 and wounded 231.
These were all carried out by mostly single shooters, sometimes a couple. Regardless of how we try to spin the facts to align with our beliefs, values and prejudices when casting the blame, there is something we really need to seriously consider and deal with: the motivations.
The easiest and most politically popular spin used by the party not in the White House is to be able to align the perpetrators with some foreign entity for which the seated president and party have not dealt with effectively. The cry goes out, “Our foreign policy stinks.” We, of course, see this being played out in spades in this election year.
A troubling yet very important fact: Every perpetrator is like a three-legged stool. They are being supported and held firmly in place by each leg. These legs are: one, core beliefs, often formed through a religion; two, predjudices, learned in life; and three, mental health.
Now the challenge, of course, as a nation, is to have a mindset and solid national policies and programs in place to identify and treat these people. It is simple and stupid to simply yell, “Immigration is the problem.” Our nation has been built with immigrants. Immigrants are our opportunity, not our problem.
It seems to me we need a grassroots movement to convince our legislators and executives of the great need for national policies and programs administered through cooperative states administrations focusing upon being aware of and alert to the three-legged-stool philosophy. This all aims toward brotherly love and a healthy life direction for our nation. It would seem that most of the hate and fear-related painful events could be eliminated.
Let’s have all of the two-leggeds and even our four-leggeds get on board with the three-legged-stool philosophy. Can dogs be trained to sniff out possible perpetrators of horrible events? They are often better at discerning people than us two-leggeds.
Bob McClellan
Polson
