Jan 102011
I don’t have much to add to the conversation regarding Saturday’s shooting of Representative Giffords and several bystanders, other than to point to Jonathan Cohn’s post on the role mental illness probably played in this tragedy. Cohn describes the inadequacies of the public mental health system and how many people cannot access the treatment needed to lead stable lives. Of course, that doesn’t excuse this terrible crime, but it’s probably a safe bet that the gunman and his family didn’t have the means to pay for ongoing psychiatric care. Whether such treatment would have made a difference in the course of events is impossible to say. Sadly, it’s question that most in the media probably won’t even bother to ask.
