Another school shooting in the USA. This time at a private school. A religious private school. More victims to mourn. The shooter was a fifteen-year old girl. This is exceedingly rare. Was bullying the factor? (unknown) Thoughts and prayers, the bible, the ten commandments, and faith did not protect the community. It may seem brazen to say that, but that is factual. It also reinforces the fact that we don’t know when, what, or how the next shooting will come. Please keep all of the families in your thoughts. Please include the shooter’s family too. Everyone is a victim of this trauma.

If you think this is an anti-gun tirade, it isn’t. I would love to shake up the gun nuts who only vote for pure freedom of their beloved weapons. No, I feel extra legislation on weapons sale and licensing is just lip service. Our country barely enforces the laws currently. We can’t have big government breathing down our necks… I digress. This particular argument is full of hypocrisy regardless of the perspective.

Here are some statistics. This site does not provide a specific rationale or casualty count for a mass shooting. Since 1982 there are nine years with more than five mass shootings. Three years have twelve mass shootings (2018, 2022, and 2023.) https://www.statista.com/statistics/811487/number-of-mass-shootings-in-the-us/ The primary race of a mass shooter is white. 82 of the 151 shooters since 1982 (per the same website) are white. We already know that a majority of the shooters are also male. https://www.statista.com/statistics/476456/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-shooter-s-race/ In the last dozen years the U.S. has had a surge in mass shootings. From 1982-2012 there were three years where zero mass shootings took place. 1999 had five and 1993, 2007, 2009 had four mass shootings. https://www.statista.com/statistics/811487/number-of-mass-shootings-in-the-us/

What can we draw from this data? Mass shootings have increased on average. It doesn’t matter who the president is. White males are the perpetrators 54% of the time. …can’t blame that on the immigrants…

I decided to visit our pop culture encyclopedia to see what insights the general populace can provide as to motive for the shootings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States As I was browsing this informal list there appears to be some sort of emotional trauma or bias that leads the perpetrator to the mass shooting. Without digging too deep, I feel a hypothesis coming on.

Is mental health and awareness of mental health the real culprit for the mass shooting problem in the USA? The USA still has quite a mental health stigma. The populations most challenged by socioeconomic traumas don’t even recognize mental health as an issue. Our health insurance industry isn’t one to advertise mental wellness as part of an insurance package. In the state of Iowa legislation realigned (cuts) county property tax revenues for mental health and uses the general fund plus new contractual measures to justify treatments in the 14 regions of Iowa that serve mental health. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2021/06/16/gov-kim-reynolds-signs-law-affecting-mental-health-services-funding-income-tax-cuts-property-taxes/7414093002/ It is just another way to assign the majority of mental health care expense to the patient. Heaven forbid the state care about the mentally ill. Governor Reynolds is employing the euphemism trick… she is really good at… reframe those biases with politically correct language…

Back to the hypotheses. What if the mass shooter issue is primarily a mental health issue? How do we fix it? Conservatives won’t like my answer… (Nationalized health care.)

This is the easier than battling the gun crazies about the current laws and hypocritcal premises used to justify their “Want” of any kind of weapon.

Of course, there is a third option… What if we regulated the munitions far more rigidly instead of the weapons? …and so it goes