In Binghamton, New York on April 3, 14 people were killed and several injured in an immigration center shooting rampage that the press is calling “the Binghamton massacre.” According to the Wall Street Journal, a spokesman for the town’s mayor said, “All indications are that the assailant’s motive was related to losing employment and family issues.”
Unfortunately, this is not an unfamiliar story. After almost every devastating event of this nature, it is found that the shooter had a history of mental health difficulties. These events are senseless, and perhaps more preventable than they seem.
It is regrettable that the only time this country hears of or addresses mental health issues, is after many people have died, or after some other disturbing event. This creates misconceptions about having an illness, which may prevent some people from seeking help.
According to an article on the Mayo Clinic’s Web site, mental illness has always had strong stigmas attached to it. Being that it’s mental, many people differentiate it from physical illness, assuming it is a matter of personal choice. The other big misconception associated with mental illness is, as previously mentioned, that mentally ill people are killers and crooks. The Mayo Clinic disagrees, “Most people who have [it] are neither violent nor criminals.”
This does not suggest that the perpetrators of shootings in schools, shopping malls, and immigration centers are not suffering from mental illness. It simply suggests that not all people with mental illnesses are about to shoot you.
Historically, underlying social issues only come to the attention of the public after catastrophic events. The poverty and social problems in New Orleans were not national news until after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Effective hazardous waste disposal legislation was not passed until after the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl or the dioxin contamination at Love Canal.
These events are dramatic and news worthy, but the media circus and public support surrounding these incidents burns out quickly, and no real long-term progress is generally made. It is senseless that so many people have to die before any attention is given to an issue, and more senseless still that it often is such short-term progress.
If it’s true that the man who shot up Binghamton was dealing with family issues and the stress of losing his job, then perhaps a session or two with a licensed mental health professional might have helped him work through his problems in a productive way. Unfortunately, there is a stigma placed on seeking help for mental illness, and most health insurance plans do not cover psychiatric care. These may have been factors that prevented the man from asking for the help that might have prevented this catastrophe.
By making it more socially acceptable and financially feasible for people to get help for stress or mental illnesses, we as a society might be able to prevent this kind of thing from happening as often as it does.