If He had been a Dog . . .

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

For those who weren't paying attention, Texas Governor Greg Abbott clarified the reason that there are so many mass shootings in America.  Abbott said that the shootings aren't a "guns" issue, they are a "mental health" issue.  If there were not so many crazies running about, there would not be nearly as many mass shootings.

Of course, that is Abbott's "go-to" position.   It's a line that is carefully nurtured and fertilized by the National Rifle Association. and then provided to right-wing politicians across America in an effort to remove guns from stories about mass murders.  It's not the guns, it's the crazy shooters - a variation of the NRA's fifty-year-old classic riff "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."  

And that argument has some merit.  Angry young white men who sit around their parents' basements masturbating with their guns as they figure out ways to maximize body counts definitely have mental health issues - but they also have guns.  And unfortunately, most states which rise in sanctimony to proclaim mental health as the real culprit in mass shootings, do very damned little to actually address the issue of mental health and try to make the situation better.  

According to a report from the nonprofit "Mental Health America," Texas ranks dead last in the United States when it comes to access to mental health care.   Providing adequate and affordable mental health care does not seem to be a priority to the governor and legislature of the Lone Star state.  Guns aren't the problem, mental health is - and they are not going to do anything about that either.

There was a story (no guns involved) in the press this week that caught my attention because it gave a clear picture of what mental health issues look like right at street level.   It occurred in the city of Bend, Oregon, last February.  Even though Bend has a population of just over 100,000, it is still a fairly isolated community in central Oregon, a part of the Oregon High Desert.  I have been to Bend.  It is the type of place where people tend to know each other, and it would definitely be cold out on the streets of Bend during the winter months.

Craig Coyner was a lawyer (public defender) who served as mayor of Bend in the mid-1980's, and by most reports he was successful in the position.  One local writer credited Coyner as "having policies that helped turn Bend into one of the fastest growing cities in the United States.  After his stint as mayor, Coyner. returned to his job with the public defender's office.    But the lawyer and politician had some mental health issues, including bi-polar disorder, and resulting strange behaviors in the courtroom  ultimately led to his dismissal as a public defender.

Mental health issues led to Craig losing his home.   His wife died, he became estranged from his siblings, he was having frequent run-ins with the police, and, as his situation spiraled downward, he was turning to alcohol as a way to cope.  Eventually Craig Coyner was living on the streets of Bend.

Last winter Craig lost a toe due to frostbit, and then in February of 2023, Craig Coyner, a 75-year-old-man who had once been the mayor of Bend, Oregon, died on that city's streets.   It was a pitiful and pathetic end to a life that had once been so promising.   His daughter, whom he had not seen in years, had a chance encounter with her father shortly before his death.  Upon hearing of her dad's passing, she said, "If he had been a dog, somebody would have rescued him long ago."

Craig Coyner is an example of what serious mental health issues look like at street level.

America has literally millions of people living on the streets.  Some are there because of economic situations that are temporarily beyond their control and may at some point be freed of their dire circumstances.  (Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush who once lived with her children in a car springs to mind.)   Others, those burdened with mental health issues, have their routes to recovery blocked by a society that would rather just forget about them.

Maybe Greg Abbott is right and mental health issues are the underlying problem in mass shootings.  It sounds like a chicken-and-egg issue to me.  But regardless of the root cause of the problem, nothing will ever be resolved if nothing is ever done.

Mental health treatment needs to be available, accessible and affordable  - and gun ownership needs to be restricted to people who don't display criminal tendencies and who are mentally competent.  Anything less is just political hokum.