Guns and Roses

Although preventable, gun violence is a leading cause of premature death in the United States, costing the country approximately $557 billion per year and New York approximately $11.4 billion per year. According to the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) 2022 data, gun violence is the leading cause of death in the US.

Gun violence affects every person in America, but the weight of this crisis is not felt equally across demographic groups. Understanding how gun violence affects historically marginalized communities is critical to developing data-driven and culturally competent interventions and policy solutions.

At 5’3” I am a thorn sized imp between the 10’ giants that stood tall in my childhood garden. Not yet urbanized, my suburban yard of the 90s was not fenced but plotted in with barbed wires. The rose faced blooming giants would unwaveringly put up a show in red, yellow, orange, pink colors all throughout the year despite everyone’s envy for our verdant foliage. In the early hours, young moonlighters from our neighborhood would brave the thorns and mug the giants of their beautiful bounty. Unbeknownst to the culling, the roses bloomed in gratitude to their beloved gardener-My Maa.

My green thumbed mother would tend to them every week and would wear the blooms in her luscious, long hair. As a matter of fact, family and friends fondly share the memory of a fierce math teacher who matched the color of roses to her saree when she adorned them on her way to school. In between the steady crop of roses in our garden, seasons and trends were rapidly changing.

Besides the political shift during the 70s and 80s in India, an average household was catalytic for a transition on many levels. A stage was set for women to step out of gender specific roles and establish themselves in mainstream showmanship of a white-collar jobs. Indira Gandhi became the first and the only female Prime Minister of India. A time wherein women set a piece by not giving up on her role as a caregiver but adding on a role as a breadwinner of the family.

It is a commonly observed fact that significant changes throw you out of comfort zone, challenge our self-perception and belief systems. Momentous changes put you on guard and cause anxiety and stress. And with challenges there comes the strength to face them. My maiden home is a renaissance trip to some such days in the sun, literally and figuratively. Where weekdays were wrapped tight in schedules and weekends were spread out on white sheets on terrace with sun-dried homemade delicacies. My matriarch brought work-life balance effortlessly. It was almost magical. Each corner of our home seemed endowed with an omnipotence of colors, omnipresence of fragrances and omniscience of light. In the center of it all was my mother an incarnation of Maa Durga in all her glory with her beautiful, bejeweled attire and her multitasking, ostensible ten hands. Her busy hands brought much composure and calmness to her rumpus routine. Her mystical aura was and still is awe-inspiring after her passing.

What was true then is verifiable even today. Furthering the concept on a fascinating world of mental health and reducing stressors in everyday life, The New York Times article from March 28, 2024, elaborates on the hands-on activities like writing, gardening, and knitting and their direct correlation in improving your cognition and mood. Less so for typing, tapping or perpetual hours of scrolling. “The human hand is a marvel of nature. No other creature on Earth, not even our closest primate relatives has hands structured quite like ours, capable of such precise grasping and manipulation”. The sensory motor cortex, a slice of brain dedicated to sensing and moving distinct parts of the body, is topologically divided. About a third of the cortex is dedicated to moving the face, another third to everything below the neck, and the last third is dedicated solely to the movement and control of fingers and hands. If the mapping of our brains is any indication, hands are remarkably important. Infact fine motor activities have been proven to be impactful on how we think or feel.

Mental health check as a practice early on, is imperative in this day and age. Children today are exposed to violence through social media, video games, and movies, which wasn’t the case in antiquity. There is an impact of climate change, wars, and senseless violence on their world view. Capping it off are the incidences of gun violence – living with that fear or cascade of collective traumas if exposed to gun violence are an immediate threat for their innocent minds. School shootings are a uniquely American epidemic. Each day 12 children die from gun violence in America.

Guns are leading cause of death among American children and teens. 1 out of 10-gun deaths are in the age range of 19 or younger. Since the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999, more than 338,000 students in USA have experienced gun violence at school. An estimated 4.6 million children live in a home where at least 1 gun is kept locked and loaded. Children living in urban and rural areas are more likely to die due to gun violence. About 1 out of 5 LGPTQ+ youth have been threatened or injured with a weapon on school property. Children of color are far more likely to experience campus gun violence. The majority of individuals diagnosed with mental illness do not engage in gun violence. 90% of teenagers killed in an act of dating violence were girls. 88% of school shooters had at least one social media account and 76% posted disturbing content on guns and messages. 72% of shooters had at least one reported adverse childhood experience and 60% reported being bullied in person or online.

School shootings are events that can shatter an entire community and leave generations of students and adults devastated. When we zero down on the rationality of the violence it comes down to the core human psyche – the need for validation.

Validation is critical to human psychology because it meet one of our fundamental, social, and emotional needs: feeling understood, accepted and valued. The key psychological benefits observed in children when their feelings, thoughts and experiences are acknowledged is the reduction in anxiety and enhanced sense of well-being. It increases the sense of self-worth and self-esteem, fosters trust and encourages open communication. Engagement with others leads to introspection and self-reflection brings personal growth. Better connection mitigates feelings of loneliness which inculcate feelings of empathy. In essence, validation provides psychological nourishment that strengthens resilience, reinforces social bonds, and promotes mental health.

In the wake of the deadly school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas school of Parkland Florida on February 14th, 2018, there was an understandable focus on school safety. However, the gridlock in American governance on effective laws against gun violence stems from combination of partisan polarization, interest group influence, and legislative processes. The result is meaningful reforms stall or fail despite recurring incidences of gun violence and we are left fumbling to tackle with the unfaced monster of a problem. 

Reflecting back on the 90s, the simpler times when I studied in an all-girls only school. The only wounding we had were the array of subjects, including stem courses, regional and international languages, and sports, we were also introduced to arts, crafts and moral sciences as grade level courses. These were compulsory yearlong courses with weighted tests and scores. Resentments ran high as we struggled to purl the yarn on the knitting needles for crafting in the finals. But in hindsight the hands-on subjects were weaving our brains for bouncebackability. Each semester would also include an expedition to weed the fields of our school grounds. At the dining table the subject would become a light banter with our parents of how the nuns at our convent are saving money for lawn care by making us work in the schoolyard. However, they had the foresight to weed out the anomalies that invariably grew alongside our developing brains.

Hands-on activities have numerous psychological benefits by engaging our mind and body with achievable purposes. The repetitive focused actions help shift attention away from stressors, allowing the mind to relax. Focusing on the present moment, reduces anxiety and promote a state of calm. Completing a craft project, big or small, provides a sense of achievement. The boost in self-esteem helps reinforce self-worth and can counteract negative feelings of inadequacy or self-doubt. The concentration and attention to detail encourages mindfulness, supporting mental clarity. Crafting allows us to express the inner world in a tangible form. This self-expressor is especially helpful for individuals who might struggle to communicate their thoughts and feelings verbally so they can channel their emotions into their creations. Crafting is often a communal activity. Shared activities foster a sense of belonging and community.

Recently though, The President’s Committee on Arts and Humanities in America published a report stating that due to budget constraints and an emphasis on high stakes testing and sports, arts instruction in school is on a downward trend since the last decade. When my child enrolled in AP music in 2021 the curriculum had shifted to a virtual portal due to fewer enrollments and lack of funding. 

Creative arts are integral when utilized in supporting mental health in a variety of ways. Art therapy involves various integrative techniques to captivate the soul, body, and mind in ways verbal expression is ineffective. Researchers have used art intervention to facilitate identity development in teens recovering from mental health conditions or suffering from isolation. However, I am far from suggesting that art is the only solution for children with mental health issues.

Many Americans live with mental illness. Indeed, one in five Americans have a diagnosis of mental illness. Violence has many contributing factors, and mental illness alone is very rarely the cause. Only 4% of violence in United States can be solely contributed to mental illness. Policies that focus on a mental health diagnosis will not stop gun violence. Instead focusing on evidence based behavioral risk factors, past violent behavior, domestic violence, substance use, risk factors related to life experiences, personality and identity, all need to be considered to tackle this pluridimensional brobdingnagian problem.

‘Busy hand, Quiet mind’ is a legacy my mother left when she took heavenly aboard during the Covid Pandemic. The famous lyrics from ‘Guns n Roses’ aptly end quote: –

“I know it’s hard to keep an open heart.

When even friends seem out to harm you

But if you could heal a broken heart

Wouldn’t time be out to charm you?”