The Unforgivable

The funeral procession of Chris Kyle, the native Texan and Navy Seal sniper who was killed recently, just broke into my program on the television. The procession is to take approximately two hours, beginning in a small town called Midlothian, just south of here, and ending in the national cemetery at Austin, Texas. It's not every day that a funeral procession is breaking news. This man was a hero, our hero. He made it home from the wars overseas only to be killed at home. Even more ironically, this man was killed by a gunshot.

I am writing about this shooting because he was killed trying to help someone with mental illness. That makes him not just our American hero but one of my personal ones as well. He wrote a book. He didn't forget where he came from. He tried to help people, the least of us, those more or less in the same boat as me.

I did have to shut off the tv, I was crying and feeling bad about the whole situation, and though the reporters' voices were uncharacteristically wavering, the story was starting to drag on the way they often do in a 24-hour news cycle. There is only so much of my life's blood I can give away, yet I feel so strongly as to be able to give a little more. I have something to say about the killer.

I do not know his name, and don't wish to know it, but the news people have reported that he has been put in solitary confinement and on suicide watch. I know from my experiences (yes, due to my condition I have been in trouble with the law) that this is not a comfortable place to be. Nor is it a modern or a civilized place. I feel for him because I know when he gets the help he needs, he will never forgive himself for what he has done. And as my wise friend pointed out to me just now, nor will the majority of people.

The prison system is full of the mentally ill. I know this is true because I once had a conversation with a former corrections officer. It was a joking, lighthearted conversation near the back of an airplane, where it's nice and loud and you can say anything you want and people can't overhear you. He said that everyone in there (prison) gets a diagnosis. I told him I had a diagnosis and I asked what type of inmates got my diagnosis. He said, "Drug dealers." But he said some people need and benefit from their diagnoses and some don't. A joking, lighthearted conversation.

I know some people think, and even say, "Let [that person] rot in prison." They say this about them all. I know lots of people are saying this about the person that killed Chris Kyle, and Adam Lanza, and Mark David Chapman, and lots of others that aren't infamous.  I don't know what would make someone kill someone other than there being something wrong with the murderer. But some people do kill in cold blood. Some people are sociopaths and kill over a pair of sneakers. Sociopaths deserve to rot in prison. Studies have shown that pathological minds only get worse with treatment because they just learn to work the "system" to their benefit. So yes, prison has a place.

But prison shouldn't be the default place we throw people who have committed a crime, not if the person is showing obvious signs of a mental illness and can be helped. Gun violence is reaching a fevered pitch in this country, and as much as I hate the weapon, the issue is the way we treat mental illness AND the availability of guns.

So please, be kind to others. Please, use the word "crazy" a little less. Please, be more open to someone who may have an illness. Someday an illness could be in your family, someday it could hit home.