This is getting closer and closer to home. Barely 23 miles from my doorstep. Innocent people shopping with their families, slain by someone who had a plan.
Looking on the back channels of social media, staring at the internals of a dead 5-year-old child strewn across the pavement. Men and women huddled trying to protect one another. Pools of blood coagulating in the Texas sun…for what? 2nd Amendment “rights”.
I will officially state that we an issue on BOTH sides of the argument.
Mental Health Issues.
This is broad and streams all the way down to the current culture in our society. Mentally unhealthy children and adults being desensitized to carrying out such heinous acts. Games like Call of Duty and other shooter-based platforms do not help the fact that in front of the wrong person, can turn into fuel and food for doing such. No, it is not just video games. Look at movies, news, etc. We are more stressed out and depressed than ever and this makes no sense as we have most resources at our disposal. Yet we are vilely mentally ill.
Our mental health is so bad and so unchecked, it is a powder keg waiting to explode. Most Americans go untreated and unchecked due to cost and availability. I recently had to spend almost three months to find a psychiatrist and therapist that would see me. Most people in that time span would say, “fuck it”. That is an issue. Period.
Gun Control and Reform.
Fuck all the noise about amendments and right to bear arms. There is a difference between owning a handgun, shotgun, or hunting rifle. A semi-automatic or fully automatic long rifle with a capacity to carry 15 or more rounds is not for sport or self-defense. It is a tool solely intended to end human life. This WAS REGULATED until 2004. Now look at where we are. The whole “good guy/bad guy with a gun” argument is absolutely retarded. Individuals with no criminal record or signs of violence can obtain a long rifle equipped to carry out mass carnage. All it takes is an emotional trigger or life altering emotional situation to send this seemingly docile person into a mental state to carry out mass carnage. By the way, the most recent Allen Mall Shooting was not stopped by a citizen carrying a weapon, those people ran. Why? Because a handgun against a long rifle with a large magazine is absurd. Except for the highly trained Allen police officer.
Bottom line.
When does this stop? Other countries laugh at us at how out of control our gun violence and violence in general is. Most countries do not have this problem because, well, firearms are not readily available. People are not in a state of delirium and fear, like the Americans who feel they need a weapon. What is it you are scared of? If the government wants to “take over”, your weapons will be no match for what they can throw at you. Here is where you get into guns are to fight tyranny, a police state, and other countries invading (que Red Dawn). I am not saying ban weapons all together, but there is a huge difference between making tools of mass carnage readily available even to “law abiding” citizens, well, until they crack because of financial turmoil, social neglect, or better, love related.
Well, I guess another “thoughts and prayers” message for all the families who endured or succumbed to the Allen Outlet Mall Shootings.
dK
More good reading:
The Gun Affair God, Guns, and Gore Just Another Mass Shooting