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We’ll Take More Funding for Mental Illness, but Don’t Expect Gun Violence to Change
Rebecca Klisz-Hulbert, MD, DFAPA, DFAACAP
Vice Chair for Child and Adolescent Liaison Services
Director of Child and Adolescent Public Psychiatry and Community Outreach Wayne State University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences Program Director, DMC/WSU Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
In many homes, fall is an exciting time of year – the change in seasons, crisp weather, and the autumnal color display. For families with children, there’s usually also some anxiety about the return to school. As a mother and a child and adolescent psychiatrist, I find myself more anxious this year than in the past. The typical worries about teacher and classroom assign- ments have given way to larger fears about the safety of my kids. Families in Southeast Michigan are especially aware as we approach the 1-year anniversary of the Oxford school shooting, in which a 15-year-old with self-described “mental problems” killed four students and injured seven other people. As has happened many times before and since, politicians and pundits
filled media streams with the call for expanded access to care for the mentally ill as the answer to our country’s epidemic of gun violence.
I fully agree that we need more funding for child, adolescent, and young adult mental health. Rates of pediatric anxiety and depression have been climbing for years, only to be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our kids are struggling more now than in the past. Suicide is the second leading cause of death
in people ages 10-24. But will improvements in mental health lead to a significant change in gun violence? Experts agree that the answer is “no.” Individuals with mental illness are far more likely to be a victim of gun violence than to be a perpetrator.
6 Detroit Medical News
Third Quarter 2022