Editorial: Killing Our Own Children

Dear Members,

I have watched with interest many very wise postings on our listserve regarding the senseless school killings in Connecticut. I have collected several opinions and I thought that I would give an overview, based on some experience directly with these sorts of events over the past 35 years. Without DSM diagnoses the killer was a very sane (in the logical meaning of sane), young man who had a destructive catharsis. Whatever the causes, the practical issue facing us is how to stop random killings of this nature. When the NRA (National Rifle Association), president used Israel as an example of how to control such killers he was met with a barrage of Nay Sayers from Israel, who indicated that Israel did not have a problem with its own citizens killing young children in schools and that the country did not use school guards. I have seen worrying reports in The New York Times that the NRA has a strong economic link with gun manufacturers. When I heard that, everything seemed to make sense. Almost every attempt to limit the use of guns in the United States over the past 20 years, has been politically blocked with heavily gun backed economic funding from the National Rifle Association (a small organization: 2 million members, with a 20-30 million annual economic backing from gun manufacturers).

I am afraid psychological work alone won't solve this problem in the reasonably short term. Embedded as it is in our social structure, but community based psychoanalytic work has a chance. I want to include a hopeful quote from a retired FBI profiler, 2nd amendment supporter and NRA member: “We must recall that we live in a diverse and complicated society. If we persist in lashing out in our emotion, demonizing and accusing each other, we will feed the false perceptions on either side.” John Engelhof.

Clearly someone, needs to look into how the political links whether NRA or otherwise, has regularly blocked any sensible control of guns. After all as the British, are sometime