I am a psychiatric nurse at a mental hospital.
The single most important objective at the hospital – one that every single employee can tell you verbatim – is to keep people safe when they are at risk to harm themselves or others. We offer many other helpful services beyond that one objective; but primarily, we keep individuals safe from self-harm or suicide and we keep the society safe by removing those who could potentially harm others (dangerous psychosis, homicide, aggression, uncontrolled substance abuse, etc.)
There are two primary ways a psychiatric hospital keeps patients safe. First of all, we have what is called, “checks” where every single patient has a staff member lay eyes on them a minimum of 5 times an hour to “check” that they are okay and not exhibiting any dangerous behaviors.
Secondly, in addition to “checks,” a psychiatric hospital keeps the environment as safe as possible with things like: beds nailed to the floor, heavy, solid chairs and tables that cannot be broken or thrown, unbreakable windows, etc. But most importantly, keeping every patient safe requires psychiatric hospitals to have a list of contraband items which are prohibited in the hospital. Contraband includes obvious things: knives, cigarettes, lighters, drugs and alcohol. But it also includes less obvious items: pens, mirrors, belts, any clothing item with a string, notebooks with wire binding, and shoelaces. Basically, it’s anything that could be used to harm themselves or others or that could be used in a suicide attempt.
Every time I admit a new patient to the hospital and I explain contraband, they usually say to me, “But I’m not a risk. I won’t do anything dangerous with these shoelaces. I promise. I’m safe.”
I tell them, “I know it doesn’t seem fair that everyone must turn in their shoelaces. But the primary objective of this hospital is that everyone here is safe. And because this unit operates in community – where you will share meals, group activities, the lounge area and in some cases, even sleeping quarters, the only way to assure everyone is safe is to make sure no one has access to potentially dangerous items.”
When I explain this to my patients, they typically understand. They realize they chose (in most cases) to come and they don’t want to be responsible for their personal contraband getting in the hands of someone who might do harm with it.
Now, there are exceptions to the shoelace rule. Sometimes, a patient who is not a high-suicide risk needs good shoes for balance, or has diabetic foot ulcers, or achy feet. In those cases, the doctor makes an exception. Sometimes the doctor says, “You have proven a need for shoelaces. You have a sound mind and you will either keep these shoelaces on your being or make sure they are locked up when not in use so that they never end up in the hands of anyone else. You can keep your shoelaces.”
“BUT WE’RE NOT SICK LIKE YOUR PATIENTS!”
I believe America can learn a lot from my psychiatric hospital.
Some might think it’s absurd to compare a psychiatric floor at a mental hospital with America. But the two are more similar than you might think. Both are communities in the truest sense. I think our denial of this truth is at the core of this gun issue.
One of America’s most unique distinctions is our elevation of the self and our “free to be me” mindset. We call these liberties. For the most part, we do not elevate the preservation of the family, the necessity of community, and our God-given role in society as much as other civilizations do. We’re fiercely independent and proud of it.
This is what makes it so much harder for us to wrap our minds around our responsibilities to the WHOLE, not just the self. No matter who we are and where we live, we are part of something bigger. We are a part of a community and the way we choose to live our lives most definitely affects the lives of those around us. Community members make decisions every day that affect those around them: How/when/where we drive, smoke, drink and do drugs; how we vote; what we buy (affecting availability for others. Think: toilet paper and baby formula); using restraint (think: running naked through a mall, a peeping Tom, or shooting firecrackers onto the property of a veteran); going to public places or events while sick with a communicable illness; and how (or if) we take care of our garbage, our elderly, and our parks. Even things as mundane as the way we treat the grocery store clerk, the children playing in the street, and the pizza delivery boy ALL MATTER because we live in community.
We’re hearing a lot about blaming mental illness to the gun violence problem in America. Of course, this is true. Mentally stable people don’t go shoot 19 children and two teachers in a school classroom. But what is also true is that never before in the history of America have we been so saturated with mentally unstable people. We’ve never been sicker and wearier. From wars, violence, famine, drought, abuse, COVID, sex-trafficking, and extremist views pushing us farther apart from one another – to some extent, we are all “cracking up.” We’re a hurting, angry, broken, and confused people, and things are only going to get worse (the Bible tells us so). In hospital terms, we’d say, “The acuity is very high.”
This translates to an unprecedented number of people looking for the “shoelaces.” Of course, shoelaces don’t kill people, people kill people. But when shoelaces are so prevalent in a community that is not well, people will die.
An inconvenient truth for gun supporters (those holding firm to a position of little to no restrictions) is that in America, 6 out of 10 deaths from guns are deaths from suicide, NOT homicide. (click here). We’re experiencing the tragic and unnecessary loss of life at a dizzying pace and guns are the method of choice to get the job done.
So when these pro-gun adherents suggest solutions like, “arm the teachers,” or “more good guys with guns,” or “increase school security,” or “one entrance” – these things don’t do squat to solve the bigger problem with guns: suicide.
As Americans and certainly as Christians, I think it’s absolutely proper to be freaking out over a mass murder of school children by an unstable young man with an assault rifle. I can’t believe the whole country didn’t just stop in its tracks and spend at least a week in pure shock and lament. BUT, IN ADDITION to the lament necessary for mass shootings, let us not forget that those same weapons – those shoelaces, if you will – are ending up in the hands of those who want to take their own lives, too.
“BUT WHAT ABOUT MY FREEDOMS? THIS IS AMERICA!”
After web-surfing for hours searching for the best definition of government and its purposes, I struggled to find one concise purpose. To be honest, I was looking for proof that our constitution primarily protects our safety as a people, not our liberties. But that’s not true. It’s not one or the other, it’s both/and.
The purpose of our Federal Government, as found in the Preamble of the Constitution, is to:
“…establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
And James Madison, our 4th president and author of the constitution said:
“[t]he powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”
These reserved powers have generally been referred to as police powers, such as those required for public safety, health, and welfare.
I know that those who wish to disagree with me on this will point out the word “liberties” in both the above quotes and insist owning a gun is their American liberties expressed. I agree. But if our “liberties” trumped our safety, both quotes could have been much shorter and simply stopped at: “The government exists to ensure no one is ever told what to do.”
We simply can NOT separate the safety of our people from our liberties. They were never meant to be mutually exclusive.
So when the two polarized viewpoints of gun control insist on making their “thing,” – either safety or liberty – the ONE THING, we run into serious trouble. We’ll never come up with a solution (as is the state of our current affairs.)
I’ll never stop believing that if we could put to rest our political posturing, we could find a solution to the massive amounts of death in country via the use of guns.
“BUT I’M SAFE! WHY SHOULD I GIVE UP MY GUN?”
It may seem a breech to our liberties to have an (even limited) ban on guns simply because some in society are mentally unstable. But the reality is we are IN COMMUNITY together and guns are just rampantly finding their way into the hands of those who wish to do harm to themselves or others. When we understand that we ARE a community, we understand that sometimes rights and privileges (liberties) must be restricted to keep everyone safe (like shoelaces in a psychiatric hospital).
Not everyone should have to give up their guns. Sometimes those in charge (like our doctors) will say, “You have proven that you need your gun. You have a sound mind and you will either have this gun on your being or make sure it is locked up when not in use so that it never ends up in the hands of someone else. You can keep your gun.”
Unless we can accept that this is in no way an infringement on our liberties, but simply putting safety on the same, equal page as liberty, we’ll never be safe.
As things now stand, we have more guns in America than people. (click here)
If my psychiatric hospital allowed for more shoelaces than actual people, we would have dead bodies everywhere. Every day.
Sound familiar?
The Netflix hit series, 13 Reasons Why, has created a maelstrom within the media, parental circles, and my mind. The show is essentially about teenage suicide but largely focuses on bullying and teenage angst. Because of my profession as a psychiatric nurse, I wrestle with these things often. Out of curiosity, I watched the show and lost a lot of sleep mulling it over. The best review I’ve read and the one I most resonate with is from Jamie Tworkowski from “To Write Love on Her Arms”. You can read his summary 
*He was 5 years old when his mother’s boyfriend sodomized him. When he was 7, the people that lived in his house threw a party where everyone got stoned – so stoned, in fact, that they passed the boy around as their sex toy. A year later, he started smoking weed, too, just to escape the pain. When he was 10, he raped an 8 year-old girl because he thought that was normal behavior. When he was 11, his mom’s latest fling prostituted him for drug money. At 12, the boy sold his first Ziploc baggie of marijuana. The money kept him from being pimped-out that weekend. It also offered him a way to escape the pain of his beatings from the boyfriend – by remaining high himself. It wasn’t long and cocaine became the drug of choice.