Saturday, December 15, 2012

Gun Control and Mental Health Care




When I am at home in the US people always ask me if I am afraid to travel by myself in Nepal.  When I am abroad foreign friends say to me, Aren't you afraid to live in the US.

On December 14, 2012 two schools that were attacked by insane people.  One was in Sandy Brook Connecticut  and the other in Chengpin Henan, China.  In the US the man carried a gun.  In China the man wielded a knife.  The 22 children in China survived but 20 children in the US did not!

This following statistic is from the CDC and includes the number of all deaths in the US attributable to firearms whether accidental suicide or gun violence in 2011: 31,347 people.

This is from the Wall Stree Journal, 8 December 2012 -
"The reported number of people treated for gunshot attacks from 2001 to 2011 has grown by nearly half."

We need access to affordable mental health care for the health and well being of our entire community, and we need effective gun control in the US now!

5 comments:

  1. Thanks Leenie. The only way to honor the children and their families is for us to accept that changes need to be made and to actively work toward them.

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  2. preaching to the choir. it is our national shame and even more shameful that so many Americans are proud of it.

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  3. Amen. I think the Ct. shooting may have been a tipping point on both counts. Senators and congress people are coming around, there's renewed funding in some states for mental health clinics.

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  4. again with the fundamental reassessment of self and society. my god, we need to truly step back and see what we are creating, have created, and what potential we have to create something quite otherwise.

    xo
    erin

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