I came across this on my email, and thought it was an excellent commentary on the recent CDC attack. I particularly liked the section on “To the public, What can I do?”
We can all do better at reaching out to those in pain, no matter what side they fall on. Perhaps that would help prevent further pain and suffering due to such events.
I think that this is great; to break the cycle of violence, we also have to empathize with the other side.
It is really easy, when one is suffering (as this gunman did, either physically or mentally), to blame someone else. Often, the cause is not human; most of the time, no one is at fault. However, that does not take away the suffering. The health system I work in does well at encouraging the “guiltless apology,” to encourage empathy. Whether we’re in health care or not, we see suffering everywhere.
I didn’t listen to the full video but something struck me in the “What can we do?” section of the article: there’s no acknowledgement of the fact that our society has no outlets for such anger! We talk about caring without recognizing that caring can mean allowing someone to explode so long as others aren’t harmed, and I kept wondering what outlet could have provided this guy with a way to communicate or at least release his anger without being harmful.
Paul says to not let the sun go down on one’s anger, but he doesn’t say to suppress it, and in counseling terms sometimes anger needs expression or it just festers – and explodes later uncontrollably and irrationally. One psychologist I knew recognized this and kept a shed with boxes full of glass bottles and jars; when someone was dealing with overwhelming anger he would ask, “So do you feel like breaking things?” The answer was “Yes” often enough that his recycling bin wasn’t even a quarter large enough to hold the fragments from that shed. Then once the urge to break things had worn itself out, progress got made.
We have to find a provision when people reach the need to break things.
That makes sense; I usually go for trimming bushes in the yard with a machete or flattening the metal cans for recycling with a sledgehammer. I’m not sure of what was typical in other societies, though.
Wow. I have not even heard of this until this blog. For some reason I thought it was about that United healthcare ceo last year. A lot of people where I live blame the covid vaccine for issues. One guy started peeing blood. He’s 31. It started a few months after his got the shot and he thinks it caused it. He’s on medication for it. It’s not prostate cancer but something similar. I don’t actually get on social media that much anymore.
I thought that kids and young adults that had grown up with social media permeating their lives would’ve built up defenses, but nope.
what concerns me is the idea that anger can only be realised…where is the opposing balancing force there? Cant individuals be taught that it is through balance that we maintain control of ourselves? Lashing out is not the way to deal with anger…that provides an avenue for developing an extremely bad habit (and a dangerous one at that)
Thank you. Good point. That reminds me of the “Braver Angels” discussion. It’s something I have to really work on.
Braver Angels
Braver Angels and a Model for Interaction - Faith & Science Conversation - The BioLogos Forum
That’s a huge question that people across the globe are trying to understand and deal with right now. One of the hurdles I see is that we are talking about extreme outliers which are difficult to understand. As human beings we seem to be equipped to understand humans like ourselves, but these outliers may not be like most people.
Can individuals be taught to maintain control of themselves? In the vast majority of cases the answer is yes. So why doesn’t it always work? That’s a tough one.
Well, easy access to guns, a culture of rage-stoking and the mainstreaming of medical misinformation probably doesn’t help. Decrying the lack of mental health support while not actually supporting mental health work doesn’t help either.
I set off some fellow NRA members by suggesting, since they were so big about mental illness in gun misuse/violence, that the Constitution could legitimately be used to authorize a national system of community-based mental health, on the grounds that many who suffer from mental illness are thereby rendered incapable of being part of a well-trained militia. The main response was that I was being silly, but I responded that what’s really silly is maintaining that better mental health care would reduce violence without supporting better mental health care.
Suicide, being a mortal sin for many, would seem to be another area of concern. The majority of firearm related deaths in the US are suicide and guns are ‘mechanisms of easy, impulsive convenience’ in that function. Statistically, having survived a first suicide attempt, the odds of attempting a second time drops to ~10%. So, a) It’s critical to reduce the ease and efficiency of suicide [mental health, counseling, thwarting mechanisms with low barriers] and b) reduce access to methods with a high ‘success rate’ of accomplishing suicide.
I have had two incidences of handgun deaths that affected me. The first was when I coached a swim team. We normally started each race using a starter pistol (blanks). I had an 8 and under age group swimmer that cowered and shook after hearing it for the first time. While quivering he asked, ‘Did anyone die?’ I later learned that he and a friend were playing at someone’s house when they got hold of the father’s handgun. They playfully pointed it a baby in the room, pulled the trigger and killed the infant. Two families and young children live with the trauma to this day. The pool staff and many of the older swimmers on the team were gobsmacked by the incident. We switched to whistle race starts at the pool.
A second incident involved a friend from high school. We were middle aged at the time. My friend had a couple kids, was divorced, and had recently started dating a woman. They were in the kitchen of her house when her (deranged) ex barged in, shot my friend, the woman and then himself. That left a gapping hole in the lives of many friends and family.
Which boils down to lack of proper training. I knew a psychiatrist who confided that he had had two suicidal patients whom he trusted with guns because using a firearm to initiate harm was inconceivable to them due to their training.
Too much of society treats firearms – indeed any weapons – cavalierly.
Maybe they were taught what it looks like to others to clean up the mess?
I have a nephew that was an EMT for about 6 years. We has some terrible stories.
I would disagree. Many who are well trained blow their brains out. Police officers are a big group who do. I’ve had a few patients over the years do so. Interestingly, one that stands out was a mean bitter old lady who got in a fight with her husband and did so seemingly out of spite to make him see her do so and suffer.
Most suicide attempts are impulsive, as stated. The overdoses tend to survive, the gunshot wounds do not. The non-impulsive suicides whether overdose or GXWs, usually are successful as they are planned and considered. Such a depressing and disturbing side-discussion.
Regarding the original topic of responding to such things as the CDC attack, is there any way to make conspiracy mongers liable for the damage they do?
The social network ‘click algorithm’ and search don’t punish… Not since we put the offenders in charge of them.
I just read that the FBI had the information that this was not only threatened but planned, yet due to cuts in personnel by executive decree they either missed it or couldn’t act on it.
Perhaps our response should include writing to U.S. senators and representatives and demanding that the threat staff be restored!
Trouble as such news can be, I suspect we’ll always miss many early tip-offs. There is an awful lot of noise to filter through.
What’s that saying? “A defense has to work a thousand times but an attack only needs to work once.”
True, but when it happens after executive orders to ditch four-fifths of personnel it’s a bit different.
Under these same administration it looks like there will be fewer CDC personnel and thus fewer targets.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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