Another one in New Mexico today. I've lost count...
For those who really believe that mental health is the issue (despite the results of the study cited, which some will reject as "fake news"), I have two simple questions:
1. If mental health is actually the reason for mass shootings, why hasn't anything been done to address it? Seriously - why are bills that seek to increase mental health resources being voted down? Why are things like red flag laws so objectionable to some gun owners? If we are so convinced that we KNOW what is causing all these deaths, why aren't we addressing it?
2. Did it ever occur to you that of all the civilized nations on earth, ONLY the USA has an epidemic of mental health issues that leads to mass murder? How do you explain this? What is it about our culture that causes this anomaly?
I recently saw comments on another forum to the effect that if there was a solution, it would have been implemented already, so there's nothing we can do - which implies that we just have to live with the collateral damage of dead people in order to protect the Second Amendment.
Two responses to that bit of idiocy - first, that's so easy to say when the dead and maimed are not members of your own family. Give me that same excuse when we're looking at the broken body of what used to be your grandchild.
Second, there IS a solution, and it's staring us in the face. In 1994, the Democratic Congress (over the objections of the NRA) enacted the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. No guns were confiscated, but no new guns could be sold. For 10 years, the number of mass murders decreased dramatically (again, the guns were still out there, but no new ones could be sold.) The Republicans let the law sunset in 2004; the guns began to be sold again, and the number of mass murders substantially increased over the next couple of years as the guns again became more widely available.
So was it the guns that led to that increase in deaths, or a sudden spike in mental illness? You don't have to be a professional data scientist to figure this one out...
It's the guns. It's always been and will always will be the guns. Everything else is what Col. Potter used to call "horse hockey". The sooner we can accept that, the sooner we can solve the problem. |
