32 | JUNE 27 • 2024 
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une is National Gun 
Violence Awareness 
Month, marked during 
this time to bring awareness as 
we typically see gun violence 
spike at the start of the summer 
months. And this 
year, the time is 
especially poi-
gnant as we are 
reeling from a 
mass shooting at 
a water park in 
one of our nearby 
communities. 
Unfortunately, 
we are becoming a nation where 
gun violence is characterized 
by psychotic breakdowns often 
involving young men with weap-
ons who act on violent voices in 
their heads telling them to do 
horrible things to themselves 
and others. “How did he get the 
gun?” “Why didn’t anyone know 
about his fragile mental condi-
tion?” “Where was the family?” 
With school shootings alone, 
we have been asking these ques-
tions of ourselves 404 times 
since the first school shooting at 
Columbine in 1999. What gets 
lost is the mental health toll of 
the more than 370,000 students 
who have experienced gun vio-
lence at those schools. 
 Separately, over the past 20 
years, the suicide rate for young 
men using guns has risen even 
higher than homicide rates. 
Whether or not a shooting 
makes headlines or appears 
on national news, families 
with children and adults with 
mental illnesses are struggling 
and need to find help. Recently, 
the mother of a 9-year-old boy 
called our clinic, desperate and 
exhausted, needing help for her 
son who was becoming more 
agitated and paranoid by the 
minute. 

He couldn’t stop the voices 
in his head telling him what 
to do and not to do. He could 
no longer sleep in his own bed 
because he was terrified of 
the noises in his head. He was 
ostracized and bullied at school 
by classmates who did not know 
what to make of him. 
 The boy’s mother had spent 
nine hours on the phone 
searching for help and all she 
could find was one outpatient 
clinic that could see her son nine 
days later. She didn’t know how 
they would make it through the 
night. However, when asked, she 
admitted she had not thought 
about removing her husband’s 
gun from the home.
While parents and other 
adults may feel strongly about 
having a gun in the home for 
self-defense, research from 
Harvard Public Health showed 
that gun owners and their fami-
lies are much more likely to kill 
themselves than are those who 
don’t own guns. 
Knowing a gun is in the house 
may strengthen a child’s decision 
to act on their thoughts to harm 
themselves or others, or they 
may even cause harm to them-
selves accidentally if the guns in 
the home are accessible to them. 

Pew Research has stated that 
though they tend to get less pub-
lic attention than gun- 
related murders, suicides have 
long accounted for the majori-
ty of U.S. gun deaths. In 2021, 
54% of all gun-related deaths in 
the U.S. were suicides (26,328), 
while 43% were murders 
(20,958), according to the CDC.
There are individuals with 
mental illnesses doing their 
best to cope with the voices and 
impulses that haunt them, and 
for children it is often while par-
ents are off at work or elsewhere, 
having easy access to weapons 
and other means of wreaking 
devastating destruction; mean-
while they are trying to find 
their way away from their own 
internal chaotic confusion and 
tortuous psychic pain. 
Desperate for relief, these 
individuals feel isolated and 
hopeless. They resort to violence 
to assert their distorted sense of 
power over their powerlessness 
and pain and, ultimately, we 
all are the witnesses. Images of 
superheroes and warriors who 
annihilate to exert dominance 
are the images our little boys 
grow up cheering and idolizing. 
Shame and lack of awareness 
and education about mental 

illness often stands in the way 
of parents pursuing proper help 
for their kids. Additionally, 
mistaken perceptions that 
“they will outgrow it” or “boys 
will be boys” or “our guns are 
safely locked away” are careless 
remarks that ignore the gravity 
of parental ignorance and 
absence. 
We cannot just hope things 
will get better. Citizens have 
more responsibility now than 
ever before to do their part 
to reduce the gun-related 
tragedies and traumas we are 
all experiencing. To begin to 
make an impact, parents need 
to be strong enough to ask their 
kids the important questions, 
have discussions as a family and 
be brave enough to ask their 
friends’ parents if they keep their 
guns locked in their home while 
your child is visiting there. It is 
our collective responsibility to 
become tireless advocates for 
gun law reform.
It’s not just about guns; we 
must also have a commitment 
to ensuring that individuals 
with mental illnesses receive 
the help they need. Intensive 
outpatient and inpatient 
mental health treatment that is 
affordable and lasts long enough 
to make a difference must be 
made available for anyone who 
may be struggling with mental 
illness. The least we can do is to 
raise awareness that those with 
mental illnesses should never 
have access to guns. 

Lori Kanat Edelson, LMSW, LMFT, 

BCD, ACSW is a Licensed Clinical 

Social Worker and Marriage and 

Family Therapist, and the owner and 

director of Birmingham Maple Clinic. 

Birmingham Maple Clinic is an outpa-

tient mental health clinic in Oakland 

County providing mental health treat-

ment to the community for 50 years. 

It’s Not Just About Guns...

Lori Kanat 
Edelson
Special to the 
 
Jewish News

HEALTH

BART EVERSON

