A few weeks ago I wrote about nutrition, and well being in general, and their relationship to mental health. Unfortunately, I am compelled to write about mental illness again.
No, mental health issues are not going to be solved by feeding carrots to kids in an outside environment. It is a start but there are a host of factors that contribute to the disease as I am sure we all understand.
Last week’s Valentine’s Day massacre in Florida has brought mental health issues to the forefront yet again. The shooter, Nikolas Cruz, suffered from depression and attention deficit disorder and had encountered several life-altering events in his young life. These issues are obviously no excuse for the horrific acts he perpetrated, but they are certainly a reminder of the social impacts of mental illness.
And then there are guns. If you are an American (or not), how is it that you can walk down the street to your local firearms store and buy an assault rifle designed to kill people, not deer or turkeys, with minimal background checks? As long as your money is green, you are good to go.
Gun makers are proud of their advances in technology just like any innovator but it is sad there is such an appetite to savour these advances, particularly in the United States where gun violence has clearly become an issue of national security.
Yet lawmakers rely on the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms to allow the killing orgy that is occurring with our best friends and allies due south.
On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump invited kids and parents from the Parkland, Sandy Hook and Columbine shootings to the White House to talk about the tragedies. From all accounts in the media, it was a raw exchange, not contrived or staged, which is a good thing, and I think that at least portrays what a future dialogue in Congress might look like.
Immediately after the shooting, however, the president blamed mental illness rather than gun use. I am not going to buy into this directly but I will suggest the combination is certainly lethal. We need to fix both.
In the Wednesday meeting, Trump suggested that arming educators in the school might be a solution to school gun violence. His thought is to train 20 per cent of the teachers how to use a gun to kill would-be mass murderers. They would be issued with conceal and carry licences which would enable them to have a loaded pistol on them at all times in the classroom.
Trump argues that schools are a no-kill zone, meaning that mass murders target schools because they are afraid to be shot back at. I doubt this is the case.
There was an eloquent 15-year-old at the meeting who has not been a part of a school system that was void of shooter drills in his lifetime. A sad statement indeed.
There is a growing disdain for the hypocrisy in the United States and its role as world protector.
We should take pause and appreciate that we live where we do.
Mike Schneider is founder of Project Pickle and likes to write about growing, cooking and eating food. He is a Jamie Oliver Food Revolution ambassador.
