I Should Know Better...

Welp, here I go.

Do we ban guns or violent media?  False binary, and missing the point.

Countries like Canada, Britain, and Australia, have access to all the same media as Americans, but do not have mass-shootings in the 21st century.  China had a class-room stabbing the same morning as Newton, yet without any deaths.  What these countries do have is restricted access to firearms.

But of course this is oversimplifying the issue: the pro-gun poster-child is Switzerland, where not only are all citizens allowed but required to possess firearms, including assault rifles.  Now, they did have a mass-shooting in 2001, but still nothing like 2012 in America.

But here's what Switzerland, Australia, et al do have in common: a public health-care system.  It is easier in these places to gain access to mental-health-care than to firearms.

The mass-killers at Newton, Aurora, etc, were by all appearances mentally sick.  They needed serious professional help.  But professional help requires insurance, resources, money, income, all of which the mentally-compromised have difficult access to. 

In America, it is easier to access a gun than health-care. That's a problem.

Believe it or not, I'm totally open to us Americans preserving our right to arm ourselves--but I have little patience for those who cry "to arms!" as they resist the reformation of our beleaguered health-care system.  Take away all the guns and videogames you like, but the sick will still be among us.  Now, at least restoring background checks at gun-shows (which I completely favor and am frankly baffled as to why that's even a thing) may keep the sick from hurting others and themselves, but that still only solves a symptom, not a cause. 

The worth of souls is great, and until we take serious the duty to care for the sick among us--to make healing easier than violence--then we will continue to miss the point, at our peril.