Mental Health is Where We Are Failing - Just My Opinion

I'm tired people shooting up people. I'm tired of hearing how banning semi-automtic rifles will stop mass shootings, I'm tired of hearing the political term "Assault Weapons," I'm tired of crazy people and domestic terrorists committing atrocities and I'm tired of hearing "+30,000 people die from gun violence."

Your Red Herring

Banning AR-15's and similar center-fire semi-automatic rifles along with other proposed "assault weapons" is absolutely a red herring and will not prevent someone from using a firearm such as a pump-action shotgun and/or a handgun to commit a mass shooting. My cherry-picked evidence of this comes in the form of the Charleston, SC church shooting and Virginia Tech shooting where those persons committed their crimes with handguns. In another attack that occurred in Germany in 2002, a person with a pump-action shotgun (an extremely ubiquitous firearm here in the US) and a handgun attacked a school, killing teachers. With this information, it's very clear that an AR-15 is not the only firearm that can be used in a mass shooting. This is your evidence that banning these touted "assault weapons" will prevent mass shootings is a "red herring."

So what will?

Nothing.

As long as people have a basic understanding of what a firearm is and how it works, a motivated person can fabricate a firearm easily and commit a mass shooting (the FBI defines a mass shooting as when 4 or more are shot but not necessarily killed). Yes, banning guns and strictly controlling their access and limiting those who would have access to said firearms will reduce mass shootings assuming you were able to confiscate the ones here in the US one wanted to prohibit (good luck with that blood bath). In parallel, if you ban alcohol the number of DUI's would probably drop since the substance is less prevalent. Though this is the US and we literally have a sport that was born from running illegal alcohol (NASCAR). So again, good luck with that. That's where that similarity ends but the basic idea is that if there is more of something that exists, you are more likely to run into it being used inappropriately. This goes for everything that exists including Free Speech. All in all, you will never see control like you see in Japan and Germany as long as the Supreme Court says the Heller case is canon.

So how can we MINIMIZE mass shootings.

The reality is that we need to analyze the various attacks but from what I can tell, the most common denominator is mental health. Other reasons exist such as a non-violent person breaking down and attacking in a fit of passion/anxiety or a terrorist attack but those are going to be difficult to stop and require a different approach.

My opinion is that the mental health infrastructure is what should be addressed. An analysis of the laws on the books will be needed to see where we can create a precision law, and not a shotgun blast like a ban would be, that would protect people's rights AND lives. Personally I feel that life without freedom is slavery.

It appears that law enforcement dropped the ball with the Parkland shooting and could have prevented it by putting this kid on the NICS list prior to his 18th birthday. It appears they had several opportunities. Remember that we do have a system in place but if we don't use it correctly then there isn't really a point in having it.

If we can improve our mental health infrastructure, we befit from not only in helping reduce these attacks but we also stand to improve some of the lives of those 44,000 people that commit suicide every year.

But "30,000+ people die from gun violence every year!"

The people who push this number clump the 19,000 people who would commit suicide with a firearm in with people who murder the other 11,000. I feel this is inappropriate and unhelpful if not down right disrespectful to those people suffering from depression and anxiety that choose to end their life. By sorting out how to better handle the mental health issue and narrowly tailoring our laws, we stand a chance of not only saving a few of the 11,000 from being mowed down during a mass shooting, we can also save some of the 44,000 who choose to kill themselves, all while protecting our rights.