The reason for it is:
When you have a population of 315,000,000 you end up with thousands of people who are out of balance.
Psychologist are handing out antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs like they are candy. Ritalin is probably the gateway drug.
We have stopped housing those whose psychosis is self-directed as well as those whose psychosis is directed outward.
A certain number of people will look at the hysterical, weeping anchors covering the latest shooting and say “cool”.
It’s probably cheaper on the population to have doctors handing out pills than it is to build and staff mental wards and all the legal stuff that entails.