Hi Muji. I have six grandchildren in school. Unfortunately with this technology age a bully can hurt someone not able to handle it. By text. By a text to 200 some other students..15 seconds everyone now has the info from a biased observer that is aimed at one person. 30 seconds the rule of "tell ten" is multiplied by hundreds on contact lists and there is an academic/social hit put out on the one person. How well they the victim, can handle it, is telling in the stories of these shootings. Yeah it's scary.

I remember we elementary school kids used to pass notes in class at school. Some were puppy love notes, some were mean. Never thought about how with texting now kids can be mean times 100, but now I get it.

Back to the school shooting in Santa Monica, it seems the shooter was a consumer of mental health services, as was the shooter in the Sandy Hook elementary school in December of 2012. Any thoughts?

Yeah, parental involvement in their counselor apt.. Also some of these kids are playing with more than one deck stacked against them. My Bio Grandson (17) has ADHD and Aspie, his twin bio brothers( 8) have a combination also. She has also married and taken on 3 step children, all with the same problems. I have seen her reinforce what the kids are learning, walling into her house is like a school board with handmade examples of positive thinking. She also attends and involves them in team sport to teach them to think beyond their own self.
I know I could not do that, I also worry that at sometime the dam will break for her. She was an only child , so has to learn these connections as she goes along. She has faults and anger, but not the disabling effect of mine.

I can imagine public discussion in the media will arise about new legislation concerning mental health and gun crime. I've directly had the stigma about PTSD applied to me four times now in my career in board meetings and staff meetings at work, so I'm sensitive to how much stigma already exists against those of us who are consumers of mental health services.

On the other hand, I am not blinded to the point that can be raised by those who are not bigots about people in trouble in their mental health who have committed shooting. People like this young man in Santa Monica and the Sandy Hook shooter as well as the man who shot the Congresswoman shooter in Arizona.

What do we think about this amongst ourselves here at DS PTSD? If new laws are proposed regarding consumers of mental health services and gun crimes, do we favor or oppose them? When yes, when no, and on what grounds? I don't want any more innocent people to get shot out there, but I don't want to increase the stigma we already face, either.

What do others among us think?

As long as they also release those who take Viagra publicly :)