NO RESPECT? –
Jan. 7, 2024 – America’s rampant child neglect doesn’t stop with its lack of day care. Infants are more likely to die in childbirth in America than in any other rich nation … Among 38 leading Western nations, American kids account for 97% of child gun deaths. Then there are the mass shootings. In the tragedies of Sandy Hook, Connecticut, and Uvalde, Texas, the gunmen were scarcely out of childhood themselves, failed by their society and by family members they also killed or wounded. More than 95% of American schools run active-shooter drills, and companies now sell armored backpacks and escape pods for classrooms.
Lawmakers talk vaguely of the “mental-health crisis,” particularly in the context of gun violence, as a way to obviate any kind of restriction to gun laws. And there is a real crisis: Even before the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that feelings of depression and despair had been on the rise in young people for a decade. Again, the racial disparity is pronounced. Between 1991 and 2019, suicide attempts among Black teens jumped by 80%.
But the same politicians who blame mental illness for gun violence refuse to improve access to mental-health treatment, or adequately fund schools or social safety nets, let alone outlaw the weapons of mass destruction being used to murder America’s children. Parents of kids in the throes of mental-health crises are showing up at overwhelmed emergency rooms and waiting months for spots in treatment facilities. Some desperate caregivers, facing bankruptcy, have considered surrendering children with acute needs to the state, just so they can be guaranteed some level of care.
