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John Edwards of Glenburn served for 34 years within the Maine Air Nationwide Guard. He’s a life member of the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation.
Is it the gun or is it the shooter? Possibly it’s us.
It’s straightforward to level at what might be the straightforward answer, simply faucet your heels collectively and say, “No extra weapons,” and ignore the opposite a part of the issue — what causes somebody to need to commit mass homicide.
This nation has let the Gun Genie out of the bottle, and we’ll by no means get it again in. For any significant gun regulation to happen, one that may single handedly finish gun violence, we first should repeal the Second Modification. After the repeal, we must ban all gun gross sales. Even with a ban, we’ll nonetheless have extra weapons on this nation than now we have residents. We might then should attempt to confiscate all weapons. Trying to confiscate will in all probability begin our second civil conflict, if it didn’t already begin on the repeal of the Second Modification.
The opposite facet of the issue is the thoughts of the shooter, the psychological well being situation that created this phenomenon inside the later half of the twentieth century. We as a nation have ignored the psychological well being disaster we’ve been in since President Ronald Reagan basically repealed the Psychological Well being Methods Act of 1980. We reduce psychological well being funding on the federal stage and closed psychological well being services everywhere in the nation.
Funding for psychological well being on this nation is dismal. Teenage psychological well being is in a disaster. Teen suicide is on the rise, and we as a nation largely ignore it. We should tackle the sense of helplessness these teenagers are feeling that drives them to kill themselves and in some instances take others with them.
Throughout occasions like these, after a mass capturing, we’re all shocked by the tragedy, we divide up and take sides. One facet desires to give attention to the gun because the one and solely answer. The opposite desires to say it’s not the gun, it’s the shooter. I say it’s each. We will restrict weapons from the palms of youngsters, who too incessantly commit mass homicide, and we are able to do extra to supply psychological well being sources to assist those that really feel they’re helpless. What we are able to’t do is level on the different facet and say, “I’m proper and also you’re improper.”
