Opinions: On our minds

 published on Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Bullying, family troubles, violent media, aggression. These are the usual suspects, always tabbed as potential causes for a school shooting. But if those are truly to blame, why don't even more people snap? After all, we all deal with those things.

That's why those reasons behind most shootings are far surpassed by the true heart of the issue, mental illness.

Look at the recent Northern Illinois and Virginia Tech tragedies, plus half a dozen school attacks from the '90s — all shooters had histories of mental illnesses. This logically leads our state's attorney general to think that if there's one way to better school security, it's by starting a free flow of information that would include students providing information on their mental health histories to the University. But, at what cost would that come?

As far as we're concerned, far too high of one.

By forcing students to disclose personal mental health history, the security on our campus might be improved (or so we would hope), but it would bring up a whole new crop of issues:

Can you force students to disclose their private issues? If so, how do you do it? How do you enforce the disclosure process? Do only certain mental illnesses call for disclosing? What happens to those whose issues go undiagnosed? How much does a student have to tell? How can you trust students to disclose everything?

Would you let the University know about your entire mental health past? We're thinking that's doubtful.

Most importantly, even when people are found to have serious mental illnesses, what happens to them? They could be offered treatment, possibly, but this doesn't mean they won't commit violent crimes. Will we put police traces put on them? Do we keep armed officers on their trails?

No way. The amount of people affected is impossible to keep track of. Just look at some numbers:

A 2005 survey from the "Archives of General Psychiatry" says a staggering 46.4 percent of Americans will suffer from at least one mental disorder at one point in their life.

And the shocking numbers continue: According to the National Institute of Health, about 18.1 percent of the U.S. population over age 18 have anxiety disorders, 9.5 percent have mood disorders, 6.7 percent have major depressive disorders, and 2.6 percent have bipolar disorders.

So, if anyone feels like keeping tabs on all 58 million or so Americans 24/7, feel free.

Instead, we'll take a different plan of action: hoping and praying that another terrible massacre doesn't happen.

Because for all that's said about better school security and text-message alerts and better counseling options for struggling students — which are worthwhile endeavors that should be pursued — there's really no way to stop a Virginia Tech or a Northern Illinois University from happening again. If someone is so lost and confused and hateful that he or she decides to commit a horrible atrocity like we saw last week, no amount of records disclosure or increased police presence is going to prevent it from happening.

And afterward, we'll all again be pointing fingers and looking for cures — trying to understand a tragedy that's truly incomprehensible.