On the radio just the other day, there was a story that compared mass shootings to suicides. Once there is one, other "copycat" events are more likely to take place, just like suicides. As if they are contagious. And most mass shooters have no exit plan - they expect to die.
When I heard this, I thought, "Well, at last!" Ever since Columbine, I knew in my gut that these events were really suicides with an added component. The despondent person does not only feel hopeless and powerless, but also enraged and furious that nobody will listen to their plight in life. They are so angry that they decide to "take as many people down with them" as possible in order to "get back at" the world that has hurt them so deeply, and "teach everyone a lesson" in an attempt to force others to "wake up" and listen.
The problem is, for years all the talk has been about guns and "mental illness." Both of those arguments are way off base. This is not about guns. Ok, certainly guns make it a whole lot easier to kill a lot of people in a short amount of time. But trying to restrict the sale of guns by government action is largely a hopeless task. Just as we have shown that government action to stop the flow of illegal drugs is a colossal failure, so will it be with guns. How do you define an "assault weapon?" A recent shooting involved a gun classified as a "pistol" but had a barrel added just short of being classified as a "rifle" and 100 round ammunition magazine attached. So, we could be arguing about that forever.
And what constitutes "mental illness?" Is suicide ideation (having the idea that one might like to commit suicide) constitute mental illness? What about the millions of other people with some kind of mental health issue (on meds, been hospitalized, self-harming, etc.)? How are we going to keep track of ever single one of them, provide documentation for everyone to prevent them from committing mass murder with a gun? Impossible. Will never happen, I guarantee you.
That leaves the real reason this is happening, which I will discuss in a subsequent post.
When I heard this, I thought, "Well, at last!" Ever since Columbine, I knew in my gut that these events were really suicides with an added component. The despondent person does not only feel hopeless and powerless, but also enraged and furious that nobody will listen to their plight in life. They are so angry that they decide to "take as many people down with them" as possible in order to "get back at" the world that has hurt them so deeply, and "teach everyone a lesson" in an attempt to force others to "wake up" and listen.
The problem is, for years all the talk has been about guns and "mental illness." Both of those arguments are way off base. This is not about guns. Ok, certainly guns make it a whole lot easier to kill a lot of people in a short amount of time. But trying to restrict the sale of guns by government action is largely a hopeless task. Just as we have shown that government action to stop the flow of illegal drugs is a colossal failure, so will it be with guns. How do you define an "assault weapon?" A recent shooting involved a gun classified as a "pistol" but had a barrel added just short of being classified as a "rifle" and 100 round ammunition magazine attached. So, we could be arguing about that forever.
And what constitutes "mental illness?" Is suicide ideation (having the idea that one might like to commit suicide) constitute mental illness? What about the millions of other people with some kind of mental health issue (on meds, been hospitalized, self-harming, etc.)? How are we going to keep track of ever single one of them, provide documentation for everyone to prevent them from committing mass murder with a gun? Impossible. Will never happen, I guarantee you.
That leaves the real reason this is happening, which I will discuss in a subsequent post.
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