Going "Mental" Over Guns.

• Author: Vatz, Richard E.
• Position: THERAPEUTIC THEORY

THE PUBLIC DEBATE regarding school violence, energized anew by the shooting in Parkland, Fla., has evolved into a left-right clash on what should be the object of our efforts. The left wants to focus on guns; the right, security. Fox News Network critic Laura Ingraham wants to depict survivor David Hogg as a "whiner," and Mr. Hogg wants to get advertisers to stop supporting her show. There appears to be unity only on one alleged cause of the problem: the importance of "mental health," a meaningless metaphor that has no practical value in stemming violence or specifically in incarcerating would-be mass murderers or, even more specifically, would-be school shooters.

Pres. Donald Trump's plan several weeks ago to reduce violence in schools addresses this uncontroversial acclaimed cure-all component: the utilization of mental health systems to help, as The Wall Street Journal put it, "identify and treat individuals who may be a threat."

Thus, in this age of hyper-polarization, the left and the right finally are united: one of the main ways to minimize violence in school shootings is to focus on "mental health." When progressives and conservatives concur, it either is due to agreement on an obviously correct recommendation or an escape from an unsolvable issue. I have searched for a dissent from this sentiment in the liberal and conservative media and could find none. Fox News and CNN finally have found common ground.

Virtually every analysis of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School focuses on mental health as a primary solution--and as a cause. Already similar analyses have followed violent events at Great Mills High School in southeast Maryland and the non-school terrorism of the Austin, Texas, terrorist.

When the perspicacious host and panelist for Fox News Network's "Journal Editorial Report," Paul Gigot and Daniel Henninger, respectively, agree that the most-important answer to preventing violence in the U.S. and specifically in our schools is to concentrate on "mental health," you know that they are at a loss as to how to stem such gun violence. One of the problems is that there is no evidence that psychiatrists, psychologists, and/or social workers can ascertain any better than laymen who will be violent. Do not take my word for this; look at what responsible members of the mental health fields say:

In March, 2012, the American Journal of Psychiatry in its "Resource Document on Psychiatric Violence Risk Assessment," wrote...