Guns and Roses | John Anstie

……has anything changed?

This article was written and published on the blog, FortyTwo, in December 2012. It is reproduced here in The BeZine almost in its entirety, with little editing. In the years that have followed the massacre of twenty-five children and their teacher at Sandy Hook School, the outpouring of grief and vows to stop it from happening again have faded into history. A succession of mass killings each year since then, feels like a constant round of unrelenting Groundhog Days. It is thus as relevant and heartfelt as ever and, very sadly, has changed very little.

I may be wrong, but the Connecticut massacre, on Friday, 14th December 2012, seems to have had more publicity than many previous mass killings. Perhaps it is because of the fact that this has involved kindergarten infants and their bravely protective teachers, and that it has painfully and poignantly made us all feel the grief to a much greater degree. I felt myself choking in my own grief, thinking all the while of my own children and grandchildren, whilst I watched some documentary background on the whole thing the other night.

Equally, but perhaps more uncomfortably, it is not difficult to understand the utterly heart-wrenching position of some parents, who, in life’s random deck of cards, are dealt the hand of a child with a mental illness and all the side effects of this condition, both on the child and on their family and wider community. The USA’s crisis with mental illness is also easy to understand, and clearly illustrated in this poignant commentary written by author and musician, Liza Long. This is not just confined to the USA. It is everywhere in the world, but unlike the USA, the rest of the world does not have “the right to bear arms” enshrined in their constitution. 

The response to the Connecticut killings, as ever, polarised commentators, political debate and argument. The anti- versus pro-gun lobbies are lost in their own arguments about whether or not tighter regulation of firearms is a relevant solution. It is not surprising, however, that not enough has been made of the imperative need for discussion and action on mental illness, quite possibly because it is so often a taboo subject, perhaps particularly amongst the better educated and more affluent middle class. 

Let me explain that statement. 

When I point a finger at the ‘middle classes’ I do so with reservation, but not to be ‘accusing’, and not just as a reference to the natural process of denial, in a social class for which mental health issues could be deemed a social, not to mention financial ‘inconvenience’. There are of course those who have had to endure any number of experiences with children suffering from some form of mental illness, whether this be a less severe form of anxiety and depression or the most serious forms of psychotic illness and personality disorders such as that—and this may be presumptive of me, prior to the official conclusion of the Sandy Hook killings—which it would seem very likely affected the ill-fated young man responsible for these killings in Connecticut.

I would, in fact, argue that mental illness knows no class boundaries. It is just as likely, if not more so, to affect the less well educated, the less privileged in society, with fewer resources to deal with mental ill-health. However, I defer to the educated, affluent middle classes to fess up that they are more likely to have the ability to lobby, to articulate and to influence the authorities, to help sow the seeds of change in attitudes toward mental illness. It is only our denial, our inability to cope with mental illness, that causes this block to genuine progress. Yes, it is very hard to come to terms with mental illness, when it it comes so close to home as your own children.

If I were to summarise my feelings about this disaster, it would be in this way…

Unlike the central theme of media coverage, which seems to have been focussed solely on the gun laws, I maintain that there is no one single cause that needs to be looked at; no one single course of action, on its own, that needs to be taken in response to Connecticut and all the other killings; there are, in fact, several things that need to happen in parallel. Let me propose at least two of those things.

The first is not only that more resource and education is needed to create a wider and more thorough public awareness, understanding and, perhaps the most important objective of all, acceptance that mental illness is as much a fact of life as is physical illness. Whilst improving how everyone in society can learn to cope with mental illness is very important, to improve it’s treatment by the medical professions is equally so. I have personally witnessed the best signs of the use of Community Psychiatric Care to lead crisis teams to support the individual as well as their family, which is a logical extension of an holistic approach to treatment that empowers the service user as well as the people close to them to assist in the healing process and thereby reduce dependence on the pharmacy as well as the paid professionals.

It will also enable the development of further research into a wide variety of potential causes. It would appear, on the face of it, that there is a gradual change in the establishment’s attitude to the treatment of mental illness, although, from some perspectives, there is still a long way to go! But there is trend emerging. 

Organisations that promote understanding of mental illness are gaining a deeper understanding and tolerance, and an increasing presence, in the media, but particularly social media. There are a number of front running organisations like Rethink (and many more) as well as high profile personalities like Alastair Campbell (search for articles in his blog on the subject of ‘mental health’ and you’ll find plenty), successfully raising public awareness in this way. 

Meanwhile, back in Newtown, Connecticut…

The second thing that must happen, whether or not you are a supporter of the Second Amendment (that part of the United States’ Bill of Rights, which protects the rights of people to keep and bear arms), is an old favourite logical argument of mine. Given my scientific training, if you have any understanding at all of the statistical concepts of chance, probability and risk, it cannot be denied, that, whilst tighter firearm regulations will not necessarily remove the risk of incidents involving firearms altogether, the irrefutable logic is that reducing the ability for everyone to get hold of guns and ammunition, restricting access to firearms, quite simply must result in a reduction of the probability, the risk of such incidents recurring in the future. The number of firearms in circulation and available to be used will be proportional to the number of victims of gun crime. If this is not obvious, then please explain to me why? It is a matter of proportion: getting things in proportion to their potential effect on an outcome…which is the unnecessary death of a human life.

It is unlikely to be coincidence that, following a massacre, at the Scottish Primary School in Dunblane, of sixteen infants and one adult in March, 1996, and the banning in the UK, one year later of handguns, particularly those used in this incident, which were magazine loading semi-automatic weapons, no subsequent such incidents, at least at a school, have recurred. The only subsequent incident, the Cumbria shootings in 2010, was marked by a different set of circumstances, not involving school children, albeit still using guns, but not handguns.

I therefore do not believe that tighter restriction in the availability and ownership of firearms will achieve anything but to enable a reduction in the risk of such incidents recurring in the United States, anywhere. Nor can I believe that a sizeable number of United States citizens, particularly parents of small children, don’t feel the same way. It may only be those, perhaps with a vested interest in the firearms industry (understandable), as well as those absorbed by the dogma and ‘tradition’ and almost sacred belief in the Second Amendment, who oppose such restrictions, and who, I believe, are blinded by that conviction. The Second Amendment, like any law or regulation, anywhere in the world, was written and constituted by people; it can, like any law in any land, be changed by people.

It is people, their mental health, safety and security of their families and communities, which are the most essential features of civilised life on earth. So come on, Mr President, members of the United States Congress, have courage, cast aside your self-serving vested interests and fear of the most powerful gun lobbies, to bring about significant change; sow the seeds of such change as could have far reaching consequences, for the benefit of human life. Let us lay down the guns and pick up the red roses that represents the love of humanity. 

My poem, “Rose Petal“, which was written eighteen months before this mass killing, in response to another, but very different signal, seems more than particularly poignant in light of these circumstances and of the tragic loss of little children at Sandy Hook, whose lives were extinguished in an instant, under circumstances, in which a misguided young finger was permitted to twitch on the trigger of a semi-automatic firearm.

---

Rose Petal

You came to me from rose vermilion red;
so rude and flushed with health you seemed to be.
I was surprised when I discerned instead
your disposition was no longer free;
that, whilst you were so moist and soft, I then
with sadness realised your life was spent;
that you had chosen me as your last fen
between your zenith and your final rent.

What price for love you had to pay, and stain
upon your beauteous journey through short life,
so full of human tragedy and pain;
so savaged by our ugliness and strife.

And yet, you gift us your perfume unkempt
and beauty, which our hideousness preempts.

Originally published on  My Poetry Library, 2011.

---

Essay ©2012 John Anstie, edited version ©2023
Poem ©2011 John Anstie
All rights reserved

---

---

---