It’s a question that may never be answered as we try to understand what would motivate someone to kill 26 people – 20 of them children — at a school in Newtown, Conn., Friday.
Processing the reality of an unbelievable situation has caused much of our nation to pause and reflect on what is causing an increased number of public-place shootings that kill large numbers of people. The tragedy has prompted discussions that surround how our nation handles guns and mental health issues and that is the right course of action.
As the nation learned of the incident that involved a 20-year old man breaking his way into the school and shooting children and adults, people of all walks of life struggled with emotions that ranged from sympathy to anger. As information was released, news reports over the weekend kept the tragedy close in everyone’s hearts and minds.
The killings remind us that even in nice, safe rural communities, bad things can happen.
Never an easy discussion, gun laws should be reviewed to ensure that they are being followed. In the aftermath of Friday’s killings it was reported that many state’s do not follow the rules already in the books. Those rules include background checks and waiting periods. The guns used in recent shooting massacres, including the Colorado theater shootings and Friday’s school shootings, were legally obtained. However, in Friday’s case, the weapons fell into the hands of someone with reported mental health issues.
We must consider the value citizens of our nation place on guns. Here, in Borderland, we embrace our Second Amendment right to own guns. But is it necessary that we be able to purchase assault-style weapons for personal use? And even if these kinds of weapons were banned from sale in the United States, would it keep weapons out of the hands of people who may use them to do wrong? Tough questions with no easy answers.
And perhaps even more important, we must consider whether we, as a civilized society, are doing enough to address mental health concerns in our nation. It has been reported that the young man who fired the bullets that killed the children – most of whom were between the ages of 5 and 10 – may have suffered from some sort of mental health issue. We must learn more about mental illness, support public mental services, push forward with anti-bullying measures in schools and take the stigma out of seeking assistance with anger and other mental health issues.
Access to guns and reportedly untreated mental health concerns may have played a role in Friday’s shootings and others. While there are no easy answers, we must look deeper into what is causing our nation, and for that matter, our world, to experience more deadly mass shootings.
What makes Friday’s tragedy so unbelievable is that, again, the places we send our children to learn and grow are not secure from terror.
There is no easy answer and no one solution on how to stop mass shootings. People are and always have been and will continue to be capable of carrying out evil. But we must not stop looking for solutions and must consider every avenue that can help us come to a resolution.
