To begin with I forgot to quote JB on the Isla Vista killing, because she has said what I think.

The fact is that Elliot’s outburst does indeed highlight an issue of central importance to the MHRM – the inadequate, almost non-existent treatment of mental health problems for young men. Socially, our treatment seems to be to wait until the tortured young man puts a bullet in his own head, and just pray that he doesn’t take innocent victims with him.

As a strategy for health, it’s not working very well.

Compare that to how we respond to women who are mentally fragile after giving birth. We screen for Post Partum Depression and throw money and resources into keeping both the women and their children safe, because if we don’t do that, a lot of babies will end up dead. Women struggle with mental issues, too, and take it out on the innocent. But rather than ignore those women and hope for the best, we create programs designed to identify and help them.

There was tons of evidence, especially on YouTube that Elliot was a dangerously unwell person, struggling with demons he likely could not understand and certainly could not cope with. A society that had true compassion for men and boys would respond to hurting men like Elliot, the same way we respond to hurting women.

So in that sense, yes Elliot is linked to the MHRM and MRAs. He is one of the men and boys we are fighting for. If we had stepped in, Elliot would be alive. His life matters, too. If we had resources and means to assist young men struggling to integrate into our complex society, his victims would be alive.

Two beautiful young women lost their lives in Isla Vista. But so did seven young men. They deserve our compassion, too. They are more than grindstones on which to sharpen a political axe.

We know how to do this, well in the Commonwealth. It is called assertive community outreach and early intervention: you have a low threshold for seeing people, do not let them slide (ie “you cannot sack your doctor”), do a proper assessment, and treat when a person as clear symptoms and not before. This approach was pioneered by Patrick McGorry. Over the years I’ve seen him fight with others (I generally agree with Patrick — and he does change his views as the evidence changes) but the idea of bringing in problem solving therapy and support for people at risk of psychosis is now fairly well established. Medications less so. Much less so.

But… this requires that you are prepared to be in people’s faces. To work with those who are unpleasant, who do not want you around — who ignore their families pleas that they get help. To be at the coal face. It requires that any legal challenge to this is quashed. That the balance between self-determination and safety is moved so that the balance point is around safety.

And doing this kind of work is expensive: the case load for each worker is a third to a tenth of that in a community team: part of the job is visiting people every day and giving them their medications, or supporting them daily, and not being averse to the use of long acting injections. All this offends the Scientologists and libertarians who say that the drugs make people worse: most of those people have not been attacked by a person who is hearing command hallucinations.

I have. Which is one reason that I research violence.

And it will not prevent rare tragedies: these things do happen.

But it is far more effective than any hashtag.

Thousands attend last nights vigil in #IslaVista. #UCSB pic.twitter.com/HGezMdWkMI

— Joe Buttitta (@KEYTNC3Joe) May 25, 2014