This is a chilling story of a mother desperate to prevent her son from becoming a danger to others.

Here's an excerpt but really, just read the whole thing.

A few weeks ago, Michael pulled a knife and threatened to kill me and then himself after I asked him to return his overdue library books. His 7 and 9 year old siblings knew the safety plan—they ran to the car and locked the doors before I even asked them to. I managed to get the knife from Michael, then methodically collected all the sharp objects in the house into a single Tupperware container that now travels with me. Through it all, he continued to scream insults at me and threaten to kill or hurt me.

...

I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am Jason Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness.

...

When I asked my son’s social worker about my options, he said that the only thing I could do was to get Michael charged with a crime. “If he’s back in the system, they’ll create a paper trail,” he said. “That’s the only way you’re ever going to get anything done. No one will pay attention to you unless you’ve got charges.”

I don’t believe my son belongs in jail. The chaotic environment exacerbates Michael’s sensitivity to sensory stimuli and doesn’t deal with the underlying pathology. But it seems like the United States is using prison as the solution of choice for mentally ill people. According to Human Rights Watch, the number of mentally ill inmates in U.S. prisons quadrupled from 2000 to 2006, and it continues to rise—in fact, the rate of inmate mental illness is five times greater (56 percent) than in the non-incarcerated population. (http://www.hrw.org/news/2006/09/05/us-number-mentally-ill-prisons-quadrupled)

With state-run treatment centers and hospitals shuttered, prison is now the last resort for the mentally ill—Rikers Island, the LA County Jail, and Cook County Jail in Illinois housed the nation’s largest treatment centers in 2011 (http://www.npr.org/2011/09/04/140167676/nations-jails-struggle-with-mentally-ill-prisoners)

No one wants to send a 13-year old genius who loves Harry Potter and his snuggle animal collection to jail. But our society, with its stigma on mental illness and its broken healthcare system, does not provide us with other options. Then another tortured soul shoots up a fast food restaurant. A mall. A kindergarten classroom. And we wring our hands and say, “Something must be done.”

I used to do some work for a state corrections officer union and heard countless stories about how most of their work and most of their problems involves mentally ill inmates. Despite the prevalence of mentally ill inmates, these guys aren't really trained to deal with mental patients and a prison isn't designed either physically or through its daily routine to deal treat the severely mentally ill.

Keep in mind I'm not talking about people who had a tough childhood are addicts or people who are just overwhelmed by life. I'm talking about people like Jared Lochner who are simply wired wrong.

These aren't people who just snap. There's usually a long trail of behavioral problems, psych evaluations and other signs. Parents, teachers, neighbors know who they are. They take step to protect their own children from them as best they can. It's not a mystery who these kids are.

There's no therapy, no drug, no suck it up treatment. These are people who are simply living in their own world. We need to find a humane way to remove these people from society for our own good and theirs as well. Until we figure that out, guns is simply a sideshow.

Added thought: "Mentally ill" is a very broad term. We need to be clear that not every person with a mental illness is a potential threat. But we can focus on the extremely troubled people. There's no magic answer to this and there's always going to be evil acts in the world but if we start with the big, obvious systemic problems (de-institutionalization) we'd be a lot further along the right path.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:31 AM | Comments (318)
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So it looks like I'm losing John Kerry as a senator. Every cloud does have a silver lining.

Posted by: andy at 03:50 AM | Comments (352)
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Another quite week in news:

GOG's Christmas sale started last week

Cliffy B decided to start a new studio instead of working for someone else

On Friday, Sony will be having a triple bonus on station cash bought or cards redeemed that day (Wal-Mart has the best deal with a $15 card giving you an extra $5)

The fun arena mech shooter Hawken is finally in open beta. Fun little F2P game that does a pretty good job in aping Yokoyama's Maschinen Krieger universe

SPACE HULK!!

Bought The Secret World on Amazon for $15 since they moved to a B2P business model. I figure if nothing else, I should be able to get my money worth out of it. I know servers really don't matter as you can group with anyone as long as they're on your friend list but what faction did everyone go?

And speaking of Amazon, they started their Christmas sale on PC downloads.

more below the fold more...

Posted by: Gang of Gaming Morons! at 10:46 AM | Comments (58)
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The list, via the New York Times:

There were heroes to remember among the victims.

Also, our media? They're disgraceful, shameful, awful human beings. The word 'jackals' comes to mind.

Finally, where there are no words, there's always music. I've always loved this song. more...

Posted by: Slublog at 04:01 PM | Comments (218)
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Forget the Mayans, Isaac Newton Had His Own End Of The World Prediction. In 2060. So you still have time to do whatever you need to. That is unless the Mayans were correct. Then you're screwed. Here's Why You're Going To Die In The Apocalypse.

1. The only food that can survive an apocalypse has been discontinued.

Posted by: CDR M at 05:50 PM | Comments (868)
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While looking for material for the Sunday book thread, I came across one of Aesop's fables from a collection in a free Kindle book. Unlike some of his others, there's no explicitly stated "moral" to it, so the reader ls left to ponder its meaning himself. I think I know what it means, but I'm not sure. Either way, it just seems strangely appropriate for our day and age.

The Kingdom of the Lion

The Beasts of the field and forest had a Lion as their king. He was neither wrathful, cruel, nor tyrannical, but just and gentle as a king could be. During his reign he made a royal proclamation for a general assembly of all the birds and beasts, and drew up conditions for a universal league, in which the Wolf and the Lamb, the Panther and the Kid, the Tiger and the Stag, the Dog and the Hare, should live together in perfect peace and amity. The Hare said, “Oh, how I have longed to see this day, in which the weak shall take their place with impunity by the side of the strong.” And after the Hare said this, he ran for his life.

So I guess some things never change. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 01:05 PM | Comments (398)
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She's resting at home now.

She recently had to skip a conference on Syria due to illness.

Early reports are she won't be testifying this week on Benghazi.

Apparently the stomach flu led to dehydration and fainting spell.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:32 AM | Comments (236)
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Starts today. If you're interested there's a pickem group, details here.

Two of the lesser known bowls start us off today:

The New Mexico Bowl (1pm): Nevada and Arizona playing in New Mexico.

The Idaho Potato Bowl (4:30pm): Toledo and Utah State. Playing in Idaho.

If you decide to do the picks thing, remember if you don't think too good, don't think too long.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 09:05 AM | Comments (356)
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Accurate to within .0001".

Posted by: andy at 04:27 AM | Comments (664)
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One failed law is just the predicate for the next one.

WINNENDEN, Germany — A teenage gunman killed 15 people, most of them female, on Wednesday in a rampage that began at a school near Stuttgart in southern Germany and ended in a nearby town, where he then killed himself after the police wounded him.

The attack left Germany, which tightened tough gun controls after a similar attack at a school seven years ago, struggling to understand the carnage that had again befallen it, a country with relatively little violent crime. In 2002, a gunman killed 16 people before killing himself at a school in Erfurt, in eastern Germany.

They had tough gun laws; they had a school shooting. They tightened those tough gun laws; they had another school shooting.

To state the obvious: A man intent on mass murder is not deterred by misdemeanor level possession/purchase laws. He's bound for prison or death by cop; he is not sweating the lesser laws he may break en route to a massive slaughter of children.

Of course he dressed in black, too. That's part of the fantasy.

They said the attacker, clad in black, opened fire in three classrooms at the school, killing nine students — eight girls and a boy — and three teachers, all women. Seven wounded students were hospitalized.

Strict gun laws, loose gun laws: An intensely motivated lunatic is going to find a way to make his fantasy real.

Posted by: Ace at 04:40 PM | Comments (298)
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