Connections

As tragic news events go, I've been pretty affected by the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and the reactions across the country. There are a lot of factors involved and in an attempt to wrap my mind around them, I tend to see things through the prism of my own experience. With that in mind, I was on the subway when I saw this public service announcement poster:

So, supposedly, in New York City, it's illegal to paint a real gun to look like a toy, and it's illegal to sell a toy gun that looks real. While it had never occurred to me before, that must have been why, when I was in China, I always felt a tiny blip of panic when I saw kid toting around a toy handgun. In China, they're painted to look real. And they do look real.


Of course, no confusion exists around this issue in China, because it is illegal for citizens to have guns. Despite being a terribly hostile environment for political dissidents, the lack of available guns really does have a tangible effect on one's safety, or at least one's perception of safety. I felt very, very safe in China. Indeed, this might have been for a couple reasons. Part of me probably operated on the widely-held cultural stereotype of Asian men being meek and passive. Part of me probably felt protected by my status as a white foreigner. But part of me also knew that if I took a taxi to a hostel in the dead of night in some random Chinese city, there was a really good chance that my cab driver did not have a firearm. And you know what? That made a big difference.

While gun control is a big part of this national conversation, how we deal with mental illness has also taken center stage. My mom wrote a powerful letter to The New York Times on this issue. It probably won't get printed, but - hey! - that's why I have a blog.

To The Editor:

With all the media attention given to the horrific events of Saturday's shooting in Tucson, the emphasis, to me, is much skewed in the wrong direction. This is not about our nation needing to "come together" or even political affiliations. It is about untreated mental illness. The severe paranoia and mood disorder as described in January 10th's New York Times article, "Suspect's Odd Behavior Caused Growing Alarm," coupled with the ease in which people in this country have access to deadly weapons, enable tragedies such as this.

For those who doubt, picture the following: If Jared screamed in pain from a vital organ each time he had a paranoid outburst, the response would have been different. Let us encourage a legislature which supports, rather than denies, funds for mental health, as well as bans the use of such weapons. These are not cases that undermine individual rights, as some would have us believe. Our government's first mission is to protect its constituents.

Ruth Obernbreit Glass
Larchmont, New York

And lastly, while it seems unrelated, all of these many thoughts and events overlapped with my watching the entire first season of Hoarders this week. Some of the storylines are very moving and I couldn't help but connect these people's situations with the incredible lack of mental health services in this country. Many of the hoarders had suffered terrible losses, abuse, and neglect in their lives. Many of them only began hoarding after a significant incident rendered them unable to deal with life. If people had access to affordable, manageable, stigma-free mental health services, then perhaps they wouldn't find themselves hoarding bags of garbage, or sexually abusing their children, or shooting nine-year-old girls in supermarket parking lots in Tucson, Arizona. I don't know. Maybe.