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Mainstream Media Hypes Up Mass Shootings To Further Stigmatize Gunowners With Red Herring of “Mental Illness”

| Mar 22, 2013

by Chris and Sheree Geo

In the wake of new information indicating that James Holmes (the alleged “Aurora shooter”) will be given “truth serum” in order to extract a confession or other information regarding the shooting, it is interesting to note how the mainstream media is “handling” these mass shootings in general: With blatant contempt for the freedom-lover, and utter disdain for the U.S. Constitution.

It’s almost too easy to see the agenda, here: The UN Arms Trade Treaty demands that the U.S. disarm its’ public before the economy collapses fully. The Obama Administration already signed off on it,  John Kerry approves of it, too, and Joe Biden’s waiting for it like a kid waiting for Santa Claus. According to Investor.com:

“Under the guise of adopting what it deems to be ‘appropriate measures,’ an Administration could restrict imports by redefining what qualifies as a ‘sporting’ firearm — the definition of which is left completely to the discretion of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives,” Heritage reports.

The ATT, Heritage warns, “could create a national registry (initially) limited to imported firearms. It could impose new requirements on importers of firearms, or parts and components of firearms, for example, by requiring them to provide the identity of the final end user.. .”

So, when you have an international treaty you just signed, and the public is opposing the new restrictions (or even a mention of them), what do you do? You leave it up to the media, of course! Once a mass shooting event occurs, they can be counted on to hype up the emotional rollercoaster and keep the audience worried about it, (while carefully inserting anti-gun propaganda), giving the families (and so-called “families”, but that’s another article altogether) affected by these tragedies – and the audience at home – no rest or time to digest what is going on.

Case in point: CBS News, last night, interviewing “family members” of those lost in the Newtown shooting:

Apparently, the point of this piece is two-fold, one being apparent, the other occult. First point: “We should lovingly accept and forgive the people whose kids shot our kids” (A relatively innocuous point). Occult meaning:”This tragedy wouldn’t have happened if mentally-ill kids were dealt with properly”.

Hyping up the mental illness factor in mass shootings has been one of the major goals of this particular Project Bluebird-like program. Unfortunately, as admitted in Medicine Net today,

Specifically, people who read a news story describing a mass shooting were more likely than those who did not read such an article to support gun restrictions for people with serious mental illness, and for a ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines.

“The aftermath of mass shootings is often viewed as a window of opportunity to garner support for policies to reduce gun violence, and this study finds public support for such policies increases after reading news stories about a mass shooting,” study lead author Emma McGinty, a doctoral candidate with the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a Hopkins news release.

“However, we also found that the public’s negative attitudes toward persons with serious mental illness are exacerbated by news media accounts of mass shootings involving a shooter with mental illness,” she added.

This article came on the heels of the latest episode of Morning Joe, which is one of the most brilliant pieces of anti-gun propaganda I’ve seen in a while because it combines many different Bernays techniques and even allows for temporary “devil’s advocate” dialogue that tricks the viewer into thinking they’re actually witnessing a debate, instead of being programmed:

 

Read Full Article  Here

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People With Mental Illnesses Aren’t Actually More Prone to Violence

By Guest Blogger on Dec 17, 2012 at 4:50 pm

In the aftermath of the recent mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, Americans are once again considering the role that mental illness plays in violent crimes, and calling for improved care for the mentally ill to help reduce future gun violence. But although there are serious problems with the way mental illness and psychiatric disorders are treated in this country, future tragedies are unlikely to be avoided if improving mental health care is the only step this country takes to reduce gun violence.

It’s true that Jared Loughner and James Holmes — two men behind recent mass shootings in the United States — had documented histories of mental illness, but that isn’t enough evidence to make the broad conclusion that mentally ill individuals are predisposed to violent behavior or violent crimes. Despite popular perceptions, evidence actually suggests the mentally ill are no more prone to violence than the general population.

Between 92 and 96 percent of mental patients don’t have violent tendencies, and studies show the mentally ill are more likely to be the victims of violent crimes themselves than the criminal perpetrators. In fact, histories of substance abuse and other socio-demographic and economic factors are stronger determinants of violent behavior than psychiatric disorders. The contribution of the mentally ill to overall crime rates is an extremely low 3 to 5 percent, a number much lower than that of substance abuse.

 

Read Full Article Here

 

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Warehousing the Mentally Ill in Jails and Prisons is Criminal

A few weeks ago, there was a lot of buzz about a UPI report that jails are top mental health institutions.

From the article:

New York’s Riker’s Island, Chicago’s Cook County Jail and the Los Angeles County Jail are the largest mental health institutions in the nation, a study found.

Members of the International Association for Forensic and Correctional Psychology say 15 percent of the inmates of those three jails are mentally ill, making penal institutions — not hospitals — the three largest U.S. mental health institutions.

There was a lot of outrage expressed about this fact and rightly so.  This is the direct consequence of the de-institutionalization of mental health care in the late 70s through the mid-80s.  Many reformers pushed for the closing of asylums and wanted to treat people who suffered with mental illness in the community instead.  The sentiment was correct and humane however the resources did not follow as is so often the case with reforms.   As such, the mentally ill were abandoned first to the streets to join the ranks of the burgeoning homeless population and now to our jails.

I did not write about this issue when the article was published in mid-July because I needed some time to gather my thoughts and to process what it means to have penal institutions responsible for providing mental health treatment.  This issue first came into sharp relief for me when I watched a powerful, infuriating and ultimately tragic Frontline documentary called The New Asylums.

If you haven’t already watched this film, please take one hour out of your day to do so.  It lays out the intricacies of the issue of warehousing the mentally ill in jails and prisons.  The New Asylums was followed up with an equally good Frontline documentary called The Released which tells the story of mentally ill former prisoners struggling to survive on the outside.  Both films are available to be watched for free online.  The films humanize this social problem.  They make them visceral and accessible to the general public.

Jenn Ackerman & Tim Gruber also put a face to the statistics in their photo essay called Trapped: Mental Illness in America’s Prisons.

They preface their photos by writing:

The continuous withdrawal of mental health funding has turned jails and prisons across the nation into the default mental health facilities. The system designed for security is now trapped with treating mental illness and the mentally ill are often trapped inside the system with nowhere else to go.

 

Read Full Article and  Watch Video Here

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