It’s the guns.
It’s not that “we’ve banished God from our schools” because I’m pretty sure that God was present in all those parochial schools where young boys were sexually molested for generations. And do we really need to have God in all our hair salons, movie theaters, and shopping malls or wherever else the next lunatic decides to appear? I’m no biblical scholar, but I’m pretty sure that God isn’t made of Kevlar.
It’s the guns.
It’s not the lack of access to mental health services, although our lack of access to mental health services in this country is nothing short of shameful. But the point is that there are crazy people in all corners of the globe, but it seems that only in this particular corner of the globe are crazy people armed to the teeth. You know what you call a crazy person WITHOUT a gun? Randy Quaid.
It’s the guns.
It’s not the exposure to violent images on movies and in video games. Kids in Europe and Asia watch the same movies and play the same video games as American kids. You want sick violence? Watch some Japanese anime (Fair Notice: NSFW doesn’t cover the half of it). You want to be comparatively safe from a mass shooting? Go to Japan. Go figure.
It’s the guns.
You think other weapons are just as lethal, yet aren’t regulated? I’ll tell you what. Let’s get into a war, with your Army getting knives and baseball bats and whatever non-firearm you can lay your hands on, and my Army gets assault rifles. Want to place bets on who’s going to win? There’s a reason why every military on earth arms its soldiers with firearms and not hatchets.
It’s the guns.
I’m not suggesting a solution here. But until we can agree on the cause, it’s not likely that we’re ever going to find one. The NRA and Fox News are going to keep spewing out nonsense (all of the excuses above were inspired by a single episode of “Fox and Friends”) to protect firearms manufacturers from the inevitable regulation that’s coming. Now there’s good regulation and bad regulation, and if we’re going to do it right, we have to start with some reasonable first assumptions, like this one:
It’s the guns.