After this latest mass shooting, we are again being bombarded by the left’s attempts to ban guns. I am at a point in my life that I now get sick to my stomach as a parent seeing these people on the left trying so hard to use dead children to push their political ideals instead of trying to fix the problem.

We all hate seeing what is going on, but instead of a push to work together to fix this problem all we see in the media is “oh the Republicans like seeing dead kids” “Guns kill people” “Ban guns to save the children”.

There is one thing every single mass shooter in the history of the world has in common, and that is mental illness. No one walks into a school with a gun without having a mental illness. Instead of looking at the illness, we are focusing on the tools they use to get their “job” done. The current situation locally for mental health treatment is just as bad as it is all over the US: six months or more waiting periods in some places while forcing you to see three different people just to get help.

Roughly 46,000 people die every year at their own hands, and on top of these between 10 and 100 lives per year are being lost to mass shootings. More than 60 percent of these lives (over 27,000 lives) could be saved per year if we could just fix the broken mental health system. Compare that to the roughly zero lives that taking guns away from law abiding citizens would save. As we all know criminals will get guns no matter what the laws are… they are criminals after all.

Because of the media’s portrayal of the shooters, kids who already feel like they are nobodies now think that this is a way to become famous and remembered.

Streamline the process. Patient comes in and talks to a healthcare professional; Patient then gets proper treatment and/or medications if needed.

Streamline the psychiatric hospitals to make it easier to get people in. Some people are waiting now for days or weeks at local hospitals before being sent home without ever getting the help they need.

Destigmatize mental health!!! This starts with not blaming everything else in the world, when the mental health crisis itself is to blame. Placing the blame on the guns instead of the lack of mental health help puts the idea in people’s heads that it is not their fault they want to murder kids… it’s the guns’ fault.

The media needs to stop glorifying the shooters! This can’t be any simpler of a way to cut down on them… Just stop talking about the shooters and focus on the victims.

Stop pushing party politics over solutions. The math does not lie. We could ban all the guns in the world, and we still would not put a dent in this issue. So stop trying to play party politics and be a part of the solution.

Ronnie Abbott
_{^{Ronnie Abbott is a local photographer and founder of FYP Media – facebook.com/fypmedianh}}