Kean unveils N.J. gun control and mental health compromise bill

2TRENTON — Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr. unveiled a new bill Friday that aims to ends a tug-of-war between Gov. Chris Christie and Senate President Stephen Sweeney over gun control and mental health legislation. Kean (R-Union) described the draft legislation as a more comprehensive bill that combines the original requirement that police be alerted when… Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Months After Robin Williams, Hotlines Still See a Spike

A full two months after Robin Williams’ death from suicide on August 11, a scattered handful of mental health professionals and volunteers are still feeling the aftereffects. They are suicide prevention hotline directors and operators, spread across the country but allied in their commitment to meeting the demand for mental health services that routinely spikes after… Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Proceed with caution

By Ernesto Cullari

I’m not an expert on suicide and chances are neither are you –that’s okay. But if you read the news, or if you’ve logged onto Facebook, Instagram or Twitter recently, nearly everyone has something to say about suicide and actor Robin Williams’s death.

Be careful what you say and what you write, because it is likely that the person sleeping next to you; the guy that delivers your mail or the person sitting near you on the train has thought about suicide at least once before.

Nearly 1 in 20 people have thought about suicide. Suicidal thoughts are more common than we realize. What we say to our friends, family and colleagues and what we write about suicide on social media will certainly have an impact on those around us. Many are more vulnerable to past and current suicidal thoughts, because Robin William’s death has made their feelings of suicide very raw.

Being able to talk to someone about suicidal thoughts is very important. There are people specially trained to help those in need of someone to listen. Share this number on your social media, it is operational 24 hours a day, from everywhere in the country: 1-800-273-TALK

There is a stigma surrounding mental health issues that should not exist. That stigma is an impediment to people who should be seeking help but are reluctant to do so for fear of being judged by others. What you say about Robin Williams, you’re really saying about them. I’ve thought about suicide on more than one occasion, depression runs in my family and it is something that I wont be ashamed of.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

Christie vetoes gun control legislation, Re-writes bill as mental health reform measure

Calling a bill that would have reduced permitted ammunition magazine sized from 15 rounds to 10 “reform in name only,” Governor Chris Christie conditionally vetoed A2006   this afternoon.

In his conditional veto message, Christie said the bill follows the well worn path of empty rhetoric, political self-promotion and polarizing intolerance in the face of violent crimes committed with guns:

“Difficult choices are brushed aside
in favor of empty rhetoric. Uncomfortable topics are left
unexplored, while easy soundbites and videoclips are packaged
for consumption. Appropriate empathy for victims, and their
suffering survivors, blurs with politics and elected officials’
self-promotion to create a polarizing intolerance. We ignore
the hard for the expedient, the controversial for the safely
familiar, and the costly for those cheaply recycled answers that
never really address the root causes.”

Christie sent the legislation back to the General Assembly as a bill that he says addresses violence by fixing critical short comings and crack in the mental healthcare system.

Read the rest of this entry »

• Tweet

A Proper Response to the Connecticut Murders

By Dan Gallic

We, as a nation, decided three or four decades ago, that we didn’t have the will or resources to create safe, reliable and appropriate facilities for those who suffer with mental illness. One reason we started to lose our appetite to deal with the mentally ill appropriately was the ever expanding definition that was being associated with the diagnoses. Eventually, every drunk and drug user was labeled mentally ill, and resources allocated to the mentally ill were quickly filled and demand for more and more and more resources taxed the mental health support system.

• Tweet