State focuses on mental health, gun violence crises made worse by COVID
Julia Bergman
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As life returns to normal in Connecticut, the first state in the nation to fully vaccinate 50 percent of its adult population against COVID-19, the pandemic’s mental health toll wages on.
Low infection rates, declining hospitalizations and deaths in the single-digits are all signs the state is “making real progress when it comes to our physical health,” Gov. Ned Lamont said Monday, but he added, “we still do have some healing to do and a lot of that is related to mental health.”
A spike in mental health related calls to United Way’s 211 call center is evidence of that, the governor said. Community health centers including East Hartford-based InterCommunity Health Care, are seeing an increase in “psychiatric calls for mental health issues and substance abuse issues,” CEO Kim Beauregard said, joining Lamont at his virtual coronavirus briefing Monday.
The time is now to create the CT Office of Community Gun Violence Prevention
Sen. Marilyn Moore, D-Bridgeport, organized a news conference in mid-April following the shooting death of a three-year old in Hartford. On Friday, she convened a joint informational committee hearing to hear about gun violence intervention and prevention.
On a recent Saturday in Hartford, 3-year-old Randell Jones was shot and killed while sitting in a car with his siblings. Later that afternoon, just a mile away, 16-year-old Ja’Mari Preston was shot dead. These are not isolated events. Over the 10-year period ending in 2017, more than 400 young people in Connecticut have been killed by guns. The crisis of gun violence disproportionately affects communities of color. One statistic screams out: young Black men in Connecticut are 39 times more likely than young white men to be slain with a gun.
(AP Photo/Lisa Marie Pane)
The state of Connecticut, like most states in New England, tend to have just one setting when it comes to gun violence, and that’s to call for more gun control. There’s almost never another possible solution to any problem and there’s no reason anyone should have guns.
At least, that’s sure as hell what it looks like from out here.
However, it appears that I horribly misjudged Connecticut. While they sure to like their gun control, they recently made a move that I think is pretty smart when it comes to addressing violent crime.
Reply
April 29, 2021
While strong gun laws are essential for curbing gun violence in all of its forms, additional strategies can strengthen their effectiveness. This is particularly true of the ongoing public health crisis of community gun violence in Connecticut s cities. That is why CT Against Gun Violence has pursued a multi-dimensional strategy to reduce gun homicide that disproportionately victimizes communities of color. The strategy pairs gun regulations that reduce the flow of illegal guns with meaningful spending on evidenced-based, community-centric gun violence prevention and intervention programs.
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Let s go!