[BobC]

I understand a lot of the positions and points people are making, but in the end, all a lot of you are proposing is really nothing more than putting a band-aid on an ever-increasing problem in our country. All that adding more controls and monitoring, background checks, security, and such, does is tantamount to treating the symptoms, and not actually working to even try to cure the underlying disease and its causes. The problem is, there is no really specific, direct cause that can be focused on to correct things.

Part of the problem may be in how we raise our children these days. Spanking or disciplining children back in the early baby boomer days was how children had been raised forever it would seem prior to, and up through, my generation. When I was a kid, if you got swatted at school, you prayed no one called and told your parents because if the school did, chances are you'd get an even worse whupping from your parents when you got home. Children were more often taught to respect and listen to adults and older people, not talk back, nor cause issues and obey the rules. Nowadays, kids are more often taught to stand up for themselves, question things and authority, and speak out and against others who are telling them what they should be doing. That kind of modern thinking, coupled with the information and images that our children are now bombarded with on a daily basis due to the internet, unfiltered images and information and lack of responsible censorship on TV, movies, and other media available to them, helps to put ideas and images into their heads. A lot of the TV shows and movies, especially those accessible on streaming and internet services, oftentimes show and glorify extremely violent and lethal images and ideas. The human brain is not fully developed and a person's persona and such not truly mature until someone reaches their mid to late 20's. All these changes and images and such affect and influence our thinking and actions growing up and developing into the people we become.

As such, mental health is probably another huge factor as well in at least some of these incidents. And let's face it, our country's handling of people with mental issues and disabilities isn't stellar. More often than not, we try to sweep such people under the rug, and end up leaving it to our law enforcement to take over in such situations. I've heard that possibly 30%-40% of those people in our prisons today actually suffer from some form or type of mental illness or mental deficiency. Our society would probably be better served as a whole by not just locking them up and throwing them into our penal system. But that is what our society does, out of sight, out of mind, right? Even drug use can be hugely affected by mental issues. Many, many, many young people in their teens and early 20's get involved in, and continue drug use, as a form of self-medication for underlying mental issues. Locking them up in our "war on drugs", is that really how we should best be handling and helping such people?

Another factor is population. Regardless of what we say and do, there is always going to be some portion of our society that is going to have mental issues and deficiencies, and some small portion that is going to be psychopathic, whether we like it or not. And the larger our population grows, the more of such people, including psychopaths, there are. And there is really nothing we can do about that.

Also, many may point to the extinction of the nuclear family as a further contributing cause to the issues we face. Instead of Moms (or Dads) being at home to raise their children, give them guidance and instruction, and steer them to be respectful and helpful of others, more often than not in today's world, children are raised in single parent families, or in those where both parents need to work to make ends meet, leaving their children to be raised by others who are not so concerned with how they are brought up, and their values and thinking being more influenced by the TV and internet they are often left with to entertain them. Just think, were it not for kids being left to entertain themselves so much with the internet and such, "Baby Shark" is likely not the most played online song of all time.

And of course, the internet and social media has created the influences and ideas that previously weren't available to our population. You wouldn't have people running off to join ISIS, or other such organizations, or hearing and absorbing such extreme ideologies, if they weren't readily available to our population.

None of these, and the myriad of other potential contributing factors to people's mental health and thinking and other issues that can lead to these situations we are experiencing with regard to guns, is the sole, major contributing factor. But they are contributing to these situations and issues and more of the true causes as to why these episodes are happening more and more. Along with the 24/7 media we now have, putting such things out there and contributing to other people then seeing and copying and emulating those in these other situations. Unfortunately, there is no easy solution or answer to what is happening in our society, and foregoing our constitutional rights and protections aren't necessarily going to solve and stop any of these situations and episodes either. I wish I knew of a quick fix to our society's problems in regard to guns, but there is no one single solution that will ever make everyone is our society happy. Bottom line is, increased gun control and security alone will not stop such episodes from still occurring, and there's no guarantee that instituting any such measures would ever have completely stopped any that have occurred. Again, those are ways to treat the symptoms, not the cause.

And since someone else also brought up the issue of abortion and the upcoming SCOTUS ruling, I thought I'd mention there is a somewhat hypocritical correlation between those states that have a death penalty, and those that are proposing more stringent and restrictive abortion rights. It is interesting, and something I don't quite understand, how people who are pro-life, could also be pro-death penalty. I imagine many of those who do follow this thinking, rationalize such by declaring the major difference is that one side of the issues deals with innocents, and the other side with guilty parties. It just seems to me that if you are a pro-life proponent, you would be pro-life in ALL regards and instances, and not just pick and choose when and where to follow your instincts. Just saying.