It’s about mental health, gun control

My initial take on the Virginia Tech massacre went like this: It's not a gun control story. It's a mental health care story.

My thinking was that the columnists and activists pushing for tougher gun control laws after the tragedy were being opportunistic and ignoring a more pressing problem.

The real issue, I reasoned, was the need for more and better mental health services. It's no secret that across vast swaths of America, we're doing a piss-poor job of caring for mentally ill people.

Las Vegas is a prime example. Large numbers of mentally ill individuals here are not getting proper care. The state's new mental hospital was full practically the day it opened, and traditional hospital emergency rooms are clogged with mental health cases that ought to be treated elsewhere.

"The folks go into crisis and go into the hospitals, because they have no place to go," said Carlos Brandenburg, administrator of the Nevada Division of Mental Health & Developmental Services. "Services are not available. Services are not accessible."

Brandenburg is making encouraging progress in expanding mental health services in Las Vegas, but relentless population growth always leaves his agency behind the curve. There's an acute shortage of housing, for example. "After they leave the hospital, they've got no place to go," he said of psychiatric patients. "They go back on the streets, survive under a bridge."

Or they go to jail. "A travesty in Nevada is that most of the bigger psychiatric facilities are the county jails," he said.

Brandenburg said former Gov. Kenny Guinn and current Gov. Jim Gibbons have demonstrated an understanding of the importance of increasing funding for mental health care. But they've been playing a frustrating game of catch-up since severe mental health budget cuts in 1990-91, when Bob Miller was governor. "We've never really caught up," he said. "Many services were lost in Las Vegas."

Still, Brandenburg argued that Nevada is in better shape than some other states. "We've been very, very fortunate in the last 10 years," he said. "We've had programs funded for us. Other states have had a lot of their programs cut. We get a lot of support. And it's bipartisan support."

Clearly, mental health is an important issue in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre. It's impossible to know whether Seung-Hui Cho's shooting rampage could have been avoided if Virginia had better mental health care. But it's fairly certain that the odds of something like this happening again will be reduced if Virginia starts doing a better job of treating mental illness.

The Nevada Legislature should take heed. It must avoid the "It Can't Happen Here" mentality. Rather, lawmakers should work under the assumption that this kind of thing could happen here and, therefore, we have an obligation to do everything possible to prevent it.

Back to my initial premise: It was wrong. Virginia Tech is a gun control story, too.

This being Nevada, where guns are revered as sacred objects, eliciting more love and devotion from their owners than many kids receive from their parents, my first instinct was a cop-out. I already get plenty of grief from the vocal segment of the readership that abhors any and all left-of-center views, so why rile them up again over the highly polarized gun issue?

But then I reached a conclusion I feel more comfortable with: This is no time for pulling punches. The worst shooting massacre in U.S. history deserves an honest, passionate response.

Again, a stricter gun control law in Virginia might not have prevented Cho from carrying out his demented plan. We have no way of knowing that. But we do know that working harder to keep handguns out of the hands of mentally unstable people is likely to reduce the chances of something like this happening in the future.

There are no guarantees. "The point of law-making is not to act as precisely as possible, in order to punish the latest crime," wrote Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker magazine. "It is to act as comprehensively as possible, in order to prevent the next one."

For some reason, a large number of Americans have a thing for guns. This wouldn't necessarily be the worst thing if the guns were being used strictly to hunt for dinner and protect your home from intruders.

But the fact is that guns -- especially handguns -- are being used for all sorts of despicable purposes. There is an epidemic of Americans shooting other Americans for stupid and evil reasons, and it's time to stop excusing this behavior as some unfortunate but necessary byproduct of "the American way."

We have to figure out a reasonable procedure to keep someone like Cho from buying guns in a store. Frankly, there's no reason the National Rifle Association -- an organization dominated by hunters and marksmen, right? -- shouldn't get behind this modest measure.

It won't, of course. The NRA, by and large, is comprised of true believers. They have only one mission: absolute freedom for anybody to own any gun and any number of guns and to use them anywhere and for whatever reason they see fit. Oh, and screw everybody else, no matter what the consequences.

NRA members often act perplexed when police officers support gun control laws. After all, shouldn't gun-toting cops be their brethren in the epic battle against the gun-grabbers? But many officers have a different perspective: They risk their lives every time they put on the uniform. They know there's a slew of jumpy and screw-loose people out there capable of squeezing off a few rounds at a cop. They know that when the going gets tough, too many people juiced on shoot-'em-up flicks, rap tracks and desperation see the solution in a loaded weapon. And they know that none of this has anything to do with the classic last defense against tyranny.

So, better mental health care and stricter gun control laws. Neither is guaranteed to prevent another Virginia Tech. But improving the odds is a concept that should have legs in this gambling city.

Geoff Schumacher (gschumacher@reviewjournal.com) is Stephens Media's director of community publications. He is the author of "Sun, Sin & Suburbia: An Essential History of Modern Las Vegas" and, coming in October, "Politics, Paranoia & Palace Intrigue: The Las Vegas Years of Howard Hughes." His column appears Sunday.