barrons

Guns are our right -so says our Constitution. You have a problem with it call your Founding Fathers.
The killer at VT would have been in an institution under the old rules. What do 8 million children have to do with anything? What is your point anyway?

tetrahedr0n

I have to ask - is this a comic remark, or are you taking what you say seriously? Because this is a stunningly cartoonish view of law. It is pretty hilarious, though.

BCEagle91

"barrons, you said the problem was being unable to control the people on meds. There are roughly 8 million children (under 18) on psychiatric meds, including those for ADHD."

What happens when you take out the number for ADHD? I consider ADHD to be far less of a problem than schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and depression.

"The killer at Va Tech would not have been in an institution under the old rules because people were not aware he was dangerous, he came from a first generation Korean family who was unaware of his illness and were probably unaware of our past barbaric treatment of the mentally ill, anyway."

- The English Department was scared of him.
- He was committed to a mental institution for a short time and put on medication.
- His roomate told police that he was suicidal.
- His showed signs of problems from a very young age and his extended family was aware of it.

It would be interesting to hear what the findings were at his evaluation along with the medication prescribed. Followup with a psychologist and psychiatrist should have taken place.

barrons

The issue of guns are another issue and should not muddy up this real problem. He should have been institutionalized for observation and care. Many knew he was dangerous and said so. They were afraid to do anything because the laws on commitment are now all in favor of the crazy person. He also never would have gotten a gun because he would have had a mental record. Mental patients are banned from gun ownership.

BCEagle91

"A mentally disturbed person can be hospitalized and evaluated for up to 72 hours. What he can't be is held forever, untreated and drugged."

What happens if he is found a danger to himself and others?

Which is why I'd like to see his evaluation but it's probably sealed.

The parents and their relatives knew about the problems. I don't understand why they didn't seek help for their son.

"Guns and mental illness are closely related. You may not be able to legally purchase a gun if you are ill, but how many guns would you guess are sold illegally?"

What percentage of those that are mentally ill own guns? All of the literature that I've read about the mentally ill is that they are far more dangerous to themselves than to others. I have a copy of DSM-IV-TR on my bookshelf and do try to keep up with some areas of research in mental health.

Last October in Winchester, MA, one or more men did a home invasion in which one gentleman was killed and another shot in the abdomen. The second man survived. The person caught and now awaiting trial was free on personal recognizance while awaiting trial on 7 firearms violations. He had been arrested for drug possession in the past. This is in a state which is supposed to have supertough gun laws. What happened to the one-year mandatory sentence?

From woburnonline.com:

Simon, who now faces 20 years to life in prison on the armed home invasion charge and a maximum of 20 years on the assault with intent to kill charge (not to mention additional charges, such as murder, that might come), is no stranger to judicial system. Going back to 1995 Simon has been charged with a variety of crimes ranging from assault with intent to kill, home invasion, assault with a dangerous weapon, burglary, destruction of property, threats, possession of a controlled substance, illegal possession of firearms, possession of controlled substance with intent to distribute, operating a motor vehicle after license suspension, compulsory insurance violation, and attaching the wrong license plates.

ucsd_ucla_dad

As 'whatapain..." and 'laxmom' and others attest, there are certainly people who are down and out due to circumstances beyond their control - kids who had abusive parents and are 'kicked out', mothers with kids who were suddenly on their own with little/no support, etc.

However, these aren't the people I see begging in this country. The majority of people I encounter begging are the ones I previously described - mostly men, mostly physically capable of holding a job, largely alcohol/drug addicted, a lot with mental issues (that frequently lead to the alcoholic issues), as well as scammers who prefer begging to working. When I answered the OP's post, these are the people I was referring to when I said I wouldn't hand them cash. Going back to what I think was the OP's original question (but maybe I interpreted it differently than others), I think there should be a distinction between the typical 'professional panhandler' and the people in the personal situations described by some of the posters here who as far as I can tell from their posts weren't panhandlers.

cottonwood513

Padad, thanks for jumping in and trying.

alwaysamom

HGFM, yes, I do give to panhandlers. I also give to organizations which help individuals who are in this position. My H is in the United Way cabinet in our city and we support many of the agencies which deal with the homeless. When I see someone on the street asking for $$, I will sometimes buy some food and a cold or hot drink if there's a restaurant nearby, and, if not, yes, I do give a few dollars. My situation is so privileged in life and we are so fortunate that I find myself unable to walk by someone who so desperately needs some help.

Homelessness and panhandling are caused by such a variety of issues that simply stopping people from donating cash is not likely to have the desired effect. Too many related issues are a part of what causes homelessness - mental illness, drug addiction, physical abuse, not enough affordable housing, lack of education and training, dysfunctional families. While I admire the efforts of high schoolers to take on a project like this, I would hope that they would do some further research in order to see the roots of the many problems suffered by these individuals. It, sadly, is not a simple matter of going to the nearest shelter because your panhandling funding dries up. Yes, there are shelters, and yes, there are 'soup kitchens' but there are often issues involved (as someone else mentioned, there are often issues of danger and theft) which anyone who has either fully researched, investigated, or volunteered with homeless assistance agencies would know.

Awareness and understanding are important factors in any type of volunteer involvement. I'm not discounting the thought and intent involved here but I think that there could be a better focus of efforts in such a project. Teenagers out 'interviewing' homeless people and making the determination as to who is and who is not mentally ill, suffering from depression, drug addicted, etc. is not the best, nor the most responsible, use of resources.

x90

I live in New York City, so the panhandlers are rampant--especially in the subways. Usually, if I have enough time to forage for loose change in my pocket, I'll give it them. It's not like I could put it to better use, anyway.

However, there are those days when 3+ homeless people come begging in your cart, and that's just irritating.

cattv

This is a great discussion. For those of you who are interested in this issue, I'd like to suggest an incredible and eye-opening book (excerpts below) that I just finished reading. "The Emptiness of Our Hands. A Lent Spent on The Streets" by Phyllis Cole-Dai and James Murray. (It can be ordered on Amazon but the authors prefer that you order more directly from them so more proceeds can go to the homeless www. phylliscoledai.com, go to the store for details.)

Here is a description:

During Lent and Holy Week, 1999, Phyllis Cole-Dai and James Murray lived voluntarily on the streets of Columbus, Ohio, the nation’s fifteenth largest city. They didn’t go out on the streets to satisfy idle curiosity, or to experience a strange new world. They didn’t go out to find answers to questions, solutions to problems. They didn’t go out to save anyone, or to hand out donations of food and blankets. They went out with one primary aim: to be as present as possible to everyone they met—to love their neighbor as themselves. Doing so, they were reminded just how difficult the practice of compassion can be, especially because of personal judgments, assumptions, fears and desires, all habits of mind that harden one’s regard for and behavior toward other people.

The Emptiness of Our Hands: A Lent Lived on the Streets is a meditative narrative accompanied by nearly thirty black and white photographs, most of them shot by James using crude pinhole cameras that he constructed from trash. This book will thrust you out the door of your comfortable life, straight into the unknown. What can happen to a person without a home? Indeed, what might happen to you?

About the Author


Phyllis Cole-Dai and James Murray share the conviction that faith is inseparable from compassion, spirituality from social concern. Their Lenten experience on the streets of Columbus, Ohio, changed them forever. Now their story will lead you out the open door, away from the comforts of your sheltered life, away from your usual sense of what’s necessary and real and meaningful and good. It will plunge you into the in-between, where nothing is secure, and everything is significant. Dare to go. Go not that you might be entertained, or even find answers to hard questions, but because there are people—lives—at stake. . . .

Phyllis Cole-Dai is a writer and composer now living in Brookings, South Dakota, with her husband Jihong and their son Nathan LanTian. She holds graduate degrees in both Theological Studies and English. When she went to the streets, she had lived in the Columbus area for more than a dozen years.

James Murray now resides with his wife Phoebe in Williamsburg, Massachusetts. He is a counseling supervisor at The Academy at Swift River, an emotional growth boarding school located in nearby Cummington. He is a graduate of Kenyon College, not far from Columbus, where he majored in religious studies.


Free Preview
When James and I hit the streets on Ash Wednesday, 1999, we weren’t aware of any homeless statistics or policies. We were scarcely aware of any services (shel*ters, soup kitchens, clinics) available to homeless persons. We’d made few efforts, through research, to prepare, wanting to go out as thousands do each year in this city who suddenly have no place to call home and must stumble their way through the not-knowing.

About the only serious inquiries James and I made beforehand were into ourselves. As earnestly as we could, we dragged up into the light of day all the things we’d ever heard, or believed, about homeless people; all the stereotypes and prejudices and assumptions, not even sure how they’d become part of us—Homeless people are dumb, lazy, on the streets because they want to be, mentally ill, violent, lucky not to have any responsibilities, inarticu*late, dirty, rude, mostly male, mostly black, mostly drunks and addicts, many of them Vietnam vets. . . . These were the things we “knew” best—not that a homeless woman could be so lonely she’d ride up and down in a shop*ping mall elevator, just to be close to other human beings; or that a young man, unable to cope with the tragic deaths of his wife and infant daughter, would abandon his home for the streets, intent on destroying himself.

Before you read further, James and I invite you to reflect on what you think you know about homeless people; on what you believe it’s like to live without a real home. Be honest.

Now, lay all that aside, if you can. . . .



day 1: wednesday, february 17





doors





I’ve walked through thousands of doors in my life; left some of them standing wide open, closed others, locked my share. But I’ve never walked through a door quite like this one—my own front door, a plain slab, not very thick and not very heavy but looking sturdy as steel on this brisk, gray morning—and I’ve never pulled a locked door securely shut behind me, as I’m about to do now, without a key resting in my pocket or under the doormat so I can easily go back inside. Today there’ll be no easy way back in, no easy changing of the mind. Only the leaving. . . .

Ash Wednesday: what T.S. Eliot called “the time of tension between dying and birth.” I pause just over the doorsill, James behind me on the porch, my gloved hand clinging to the knob. It’s a little after 8:00 a.m. Jihong’s already left for work, as if this were just a usual day in our marriage; Phoebe, James’s girlfriend, has started for her home in Connecticut, as if this were just the end of another too-brief visit. They couldn’t bear to stay here at the house and watch us go, and we couldn’t bear to leave them behind, so they were the first out the door, just after the four of us had made our parting, borrowing the strength of ceremony. In a small bowl we’d combined wood ash from the fireplace with the finer, sweeter ash of incense collected from the meditation room. Then we’d marked each other, as Cain is said to have been marked by God before setting out into the unknown, better to learn the keeping of his brother. The faint dust marks, so tenderly imposed on the skin of our foreheads, were our sign of belonging—to each other, to this set-apart time, and to a world that covers us with the dust of sufferings and miracles alike.

Now I look over my shoulder at James, hand still full of knob.

“Are we ready, Irishman?”

His body visibly braces: he feels the edge. Who empties his bags, rather than packs, before a long, hard journey? He breathes deeply, all he can do, bright tears staining his cheeks. Then his eyes lock mine. “Okay,” he says firmly. “Ready.”

I step down, tug the door home, test the lock. Ready or not, the thing’s done. . . .