Do we have a gun problem, or do we have a mental health problem?
For pro-gun controllers the answer is obvious, and they’ll do everything in their power to never let option B --- mental health --- ever trump blaming the inanimate object. How do they get away with this?
Well, it’s easy, just do these three things:
1. Avoid all the facts.
2. Over sensationalize some made up “facts” of your own.
3. And finally --- and this is the most important of them all --- make sure everyone stays high as a kite on emotion.
Do all of these three things and the sky's the limit. You might even be able to convince a former Chief Justice to call for the repeal of the Second Amendment.
So let’s look at the facts. Over the last quarter of a century, the US gun homicide rate has fallen by over HALF. During that same period, the gun violence victimization rate has fallen by SEVENTY PERCENT. So how has the pro-gun control lobby made it look lately like gun violence --- rather than receding --- is actually a GROWING problem, especially when every statistic out there will show you the exact opposite?
It’s easy. If it bleeds... it leads.
Violence, no matter how random or rare it may be, always gets more attention than peace does. A mass shooting will get 24 hours a day seven days a week coverage for over a month. Random acts of violence inspire marches, walkouts and even legislature, but a QUARTER OF A CENTURY of falling crime gets JACK SQUAT.
The answer is mental health and the government's inability to address it.
But I think everyone can agree that there is a problem right now. I’ve already established it’s not guns --- the facts don’t fit that narrative. So what’s really the issue here? The answer is mental health and the government's inability to address it.
Pardon me while I unload a few more facts. Keep in mind, NONE of these numbers I’m about to drop came from any partisan source. They didn’t come from some conservative think tank. All of this came from the United States Secret Service. The Secret Service just released a report showing that 64 percent of all mass shooters showed symptoms of mental illness.
A quarter of them had even been hospitalized or prescribed psychiatric medication BEFORE the attacks. 75 percent of these killers sent communications or engaged in suspicious conduct that should have alerted law enforcement.
So we’ve got clinically insane people, who in many cases have been in mental facilities, but are still able to purchase guns, AND they’re even giving away their intentions beforehand with “communications and suspicious activity.”
Blame the guns.
The facts clearly show that gun violence is going down, but --- at the same time --- mental health is spiraling out of control, and our government clearly can’t figure out how to handle it. So people have taken the easy way out.
Blame the guns --- the tools of the clinically insane --- all the while sweeping the REAL problem under the rug.
