The Age Of The Angry Male Gunman

RULE # 1 NO MORE GUNS FOR MEN, ONLY WOMEN FROM NOW ON.

I'm so blown away by what happened here in Connecticut yesterday that I couldn't even keep it together watching the news. It's a difficult enough decision in life as to whether or not to become a parent without the added stress of worrying if someone would lose his mind and inexplicably murder your child in a kindergarten classroom. I just can't handle these stories anymore and with the mall shooting in Oregon on Tuesday, I'd decided I wasn't going to read about them anymore. With the local shooting which left 20 5-year-olds dead, I just couldn't escape it. These incidents are so frequent and troubling and far more terrifying than obscure ideas about terrorism. This is what terrorism looks like in America. You never know when it will happen, who will be targeted and who will perpetrate.

There is nothing wrong with making guns harder to obtain. It's not a violation of the 2nd Amendment to enforce assault weapons bans or waiting periods. The purpose of a gun is to kill things and if it's an emergency - if you have a killing emergency - use a different weapon. When things like this happen - and it's so frequent that we all know things like this could happen any day - there is a voice that says discussing gun control on the same day politicizes the tragedy and that's disrespectful, but that's a cop out for doing nothing. When these incidents occur, emotions run high and people want to see change, protections instituted, reform of some kind that lets us know we didn't take it lightly. That reform never takes place and people are bullied out of pushing for it by being accused of politicizing a tragedy. This is only a political issue for gun lobbyists who want unfettered access to the tools of the new terrorism. Gun control advocates are rarely politicos looking to protect some corporate interests. It's not the switchblade lobby trying to get guns out of the hands of crazies, it's typically friends and relatives of shooting victims wishing desperately to prevent further tragedy.

More importantly - much much more importantly, we have a severe mental illness issue in this country that is not being addressed. If mental health care were less stigmatized, more affordable and more widely available, could that help? Could we lobby for that?