From my professional and personal experience, I would like to point out that
if a member of your family is an adult and is clearly mentally ill, even if
there are an array of available treatment services, it may be difficult or
impossible to help that individual go for treatment. All of this emphasis on
improving mental health services doesn't solve the problem. There's no legal
or practical way of forcing an adult to accept or utilize psychiatric
treatment. That is a tragedy with which many families live. It is probably
the reason for the reports about all of those killers whom people described,
in retrospect, as troubled, loners, obviously mentetally ill, etc. People
may have known that there was something terribly wrong, but they were
powerless to do anything. The only thing that can be done is to make guns as
unavailable as possible.
Miriam