While there has been a small amount of progress since the hateful shooting of an 18 year old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9^th of 2014, it is frustrating for me to hear almost every night on the news about another shooting.  Have we become desensitized to all this violence? There seems to be one major common denominator when it comes to all the violence: MENTAL ILLNESS.

While guns are often the tools-of-choice for unstable persons acting out against others, the focus of time and energy and advocacy needs to be in diagnosing and treating mental illness. And yes, this is a medical and societal crisis!   So on this anniversary of the death of Michael Brown, let’s search for ways to be advocates in helping this nation improve conditions for the mentally ill.   And yes, anything we can do to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill persons would a great help in curbing all the violence.