The Sandy Hook Elementary shooting was just another tragedy in what has been a long line of tragedies caused by gun violence in this country over the last few years. Many politicians have called for more guns or less guns, but what I think they are missing is what causes these individuals to go out and massacre innocent people. After all, the presence of a gun does not automatically mean that someone is going to go commit murder. There are hundreds of thousands of responsible gun owners in the U.S. that you never hear about because they use their weapons responsibly.
No, the real problem with America’s gun violence is two-fold. The first part of it is the state of mental health care for the average American.
Let’s start locally. In 1844, then-governor of Missouri Thomas Reynolds committed suicide in his office. The shock resulting from his death led to the first mental health institution being founded in Fulton. Fast forward more than 150 years later, and not much innovation has come to that facility. According to the Missouri Department of Mental Health, Fulton State Hospital is “inordinately expensive to operate and is an extremely dangerous environment for both patients and staff.”
This is only the beginning of the problem as the hospital is only used for those with the most severe cases of mental illness. An average person needs to go to a psychiatrist, and many insurance companies do not cover the cost of therapy. Even if a patient scrapes together the money for therapy, there are a very limited number of registered psychiatrists to go to in the state of Missouri.
Making all of that worse is the stigma of mental illness. Many people ignore their mental illness for fear of being seen as “crazy.” This causes people such as Adam Lanza to escape between the cracks until they finally snap and cause tragedies to happen.
But this is only one part of America’s issues with gun violence. America has a mass culture of violence. We are used to violence in our television, movies, video games, books — in almost every form of media known to man. TV shows such as “COPS,” which showcase various criminals running away from police, are wildly popular. Even in the case of the reporting on tragedies such as Sandy Hook, we glue ourselves to our TV sets, Twitter feeds and any venue through which we can see as much of the tragedy that we can, in order to satisfy some voyeuristic need for violence. No legislation is going to change that.
Yes, you could take away all of the guns in America, and that would certainly decrease gun violence. However, there are more ways to kill than with a gun, and we would quickly move on to solving the next violent crime epidemic.
We as Americans need to take a serious look at what we are doing to contribute to violence in our communities. Do we ignore individuals who need help? Do we endorse companies that support egregious displays of violence? If so, we are just as guilty for what happened at Sandy Hook as Adam Lanza was.
The government is going to the drawing board to decide what to do to prevent more tragedies from occurring. Some have suggested a total weapons ban, while others are calling for armed security guards in schools. These are the easy ways out. It’s time for America to grow up and face the real roots of its obsession with guns before another tragedy occurs, and we’re left with nothing but questions yet again.
