Mental illness cited as reason for shooter’s rage

A couple days after Larry Gene Ashbrook walked into the Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas wounding several people and killing seven others before turning the gun on himself, a friend asked me if I was going to write a column about the latest in a tragic series of mass shootings.

My response to his question was what would my column be about and what would I call it? Columbine Part II? That’s what some of the Dallas area news anchors who covered the Fort Worth tragedy live the night of Sept. 15 made brief references to.

When gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold opened fire on their classmates at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado last April, one of the shooters reportedly asked a young woman if she believed in God. When she said yes, for no reason other than having no respect for human life, shot her.

I have heard and read all the reasons why mass murderers have taken their rage out on society in such places as the bell tower at the University of Texas in Austin, in restaurants like the McDonald’s in California and Luby’s in Killeen, Texas, in post offices and in day trading companies. The reasons stemmed from unemployment, family and financial problems, work related issues to relationships with women.

One possible reason for the Fort Worth shootings was that Ashbrook couldn’t hold down a job and was in danger of losing the home which his father, who died in July, was paying for.

But then I read a front-page article in the Sept. 19, 1999 edition of The Dallas Morning News that boasted the headline, “Mental illness called the root of killer’s rage.”

The article quoted medical experts who said Ashbrook suffered from “apparent mental illness, undiagnosed and untreated.” According to the story, Dr. Saundra Gilfillan, medical director of psychiatric emergency services at Parkland Memorial Hospital, said Ashbrook “fit the profile of someone at grave risk of turning to murder-suicide: paranoid, delusional, angry and isolated.”

This is not the first time mental illness has been cited as a reason for gun violence.

The Nov. 28, 1994 issue of Time stated when Joseph Wesbecker, an out-of-work pressman walked into his former place of employment in Louisville, Kentucky Sept. 14, 1989, and opened fire, he was suffering from depression at the time and was taking Prozac. Eric Harris was also reportedly taking prescribed medications.

It makes me sick when innocent lives are senselessly cut short by someone else. But what turns my stomach even more is when society and legislators play the blame game every time a mass shooting happens. When ex-Beatle John Lennon was assassinated at the hands of a deranged fan 19 years ago, Congress began passing a number of gun control laws involving the sale and use of handguns and automatic weapons, according to a December 1980 issue of Time. Not one of those laws it seems has done an ounce of good.

Someone should explain to congress that outlawing automatic weapons isn’t going to stop the mentally ill or distraught individuals from getting their hands on other types of guns.

Society fingered law enforcement agencies and high school administrators for overlooking the ominous warning signs Harris and Klebold displayed in public. It took people less than 48 hours after the Columbine shootings to phone complaints to area video stores asking they pull such films as “The Basketball Diaries” (1995) from their shelves because the movies influence kids to go on shooting sprees. Society senselessly, I might add, blamed rock groups like Marilyn Manson and the Internet for the student’s actions.

It’s not law enforcement, Hollywood, high school administrators, the Internet, people who sell guns or the gun manufacturers. Not even the guns themselves.

The blame rests in the hands of the person(s) who pulled the trigger. But it’s not only limited to them. The blame also rests on the families of the individuals who did little or nothing to get the person any medical attention or failed to see the warning signs.

By all accounts it seems, the Ashbrook family certainly didn’t. According to the same Sept. 19, 1999, column in The Dallas Morning News, a spokesman for the family said they were not aware if the gunman had ever been diagnosed with a mental illness.

Until families of possible mentally ill people start caring about what their loved ones are going through, until parents start giving a damn about what their kids are doing under their roofs and stop worrying about their careers and material things, mass shootings like the ones at Columbine and Wedgwood Baptist Church will continue to happen.

If you notice a friend, family member, or coworker is going through some serious problems, then for God’s sake don’t ignore it and don’t make fun of them.

Get them help and if you can’t afford the medical expenses or have the time, find someone who can.

Don’t wait until a major tragedy strikes because by then, it will be too late.

When it happens again, the people I am going to blame other than the person or persons who carried out the atrocious acts will be their families who either did little to help or simply ignored them.

©11/17/99