Name: Luca Chou

Social Justice Group: 2023-2024, Gun Violence Epidemic: NYC and USA

Date of Fieldwork: January 19, 2024

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Marika Condos

Type of Fieldwork: [69]

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?:

Today our gun violence SJ group talked to Wally’s mother Marika Condos. Marika Condos is a therapist living in NYC who has been working with people for 25 years. In our 30 minute interview, Marika gave us good information about her work in Mental Health. During the interview Marika talked about how mental health doesn’t actually affect and/or increase gun violence percentages. This is a myth that shooters have mental health issues and most of the population believes this myth. Marika was talking about how dangerous this myth can be because mental health really affects peoples lives, but it doesn’t correlate to gun violence.

Another major topic that Marika talked about was that a lot of people who need help are afraid to get it and would rather suffer. I think this is very interesting because these people who keep suffering and don’t get help can lead to committing suicide or maybe worse with mass shootings. These people who commit mass shootings may not be mentally unstable but tragically harmed and are suffering because of their own circumstances. Also she talked about how gun laws need to be strengthened and how it is way too easy to get a firearm and how little people are going to therapy even though they need it.