I am sick of seeing all of the bullshit memes about guns and gun violence and gun control. The first thing I think when I see a mass shooting is what is wrong with this poor person for him/her to think this would solve their problems? The first thoughts shouldn't be more guns, less guns, less video games, less violence on tv, less violence in music. I understand the initial reaction is to attempt to force control onto an uncontrollable situation by eliminating the means and methods of these acts. If you want to ameliorate the side-effects of something without asking the questions why and finding an answer and attacking the root cause then you're doing a disservice to everyone. You're just jumping on a bandwagon that's about to roll off of a cliff, and frankly, we might all be better for it. The question is figuring out why people are killing other people. The answer is mental health. The attack is UNDERSTANDING and TREATMENT.

Understanding is comprehension AND compassion. That's an AND not an OR. The mental health crisis we are facing makes the other every-day issues or problems we have (or think we have) insignificant in comparison. We have to stop paying lip service to the mental health needs of people. Ever tell someone about your therapy? If they've never done any self-therapy and/or don't understand what it's all about, they look at you like you have herpes. That's bullshit. That's rude. You don't look at a cancer patient like they're going to die, you don't look at someone in a wheelchair like they're useless, you don't move all of the sugar away from a diabetic. That's bullshit. That's rude. We treat suicides like they're selfish assholes just trying to get attention, we treat these gunmen like rampaging psychopaths fulfilling some perverse need for slaughter, we treat serious mental health patients by locking them up like criminals and force-feeding them whatever meds we're testing this year. I have compassion for these people, constantly being told your problems aren't problems (cause first-world problems aren't problems you people keep telling me), constantly being blamed, shunned, shamed, mistreated and/or just plain ignored exaggerates one's issues exponentially. Let me state that clearly and plainly so you can understand: treating someone shitty because they have problems makes their problems worse. If this world were emotionally safer for people to ask for help, it would be physically safer. Period.

Treatment isn't so straight-forward. Just handing someone a bunch of drugs and telling them to get over their stuff is worthless. The pill-popping society we've built around the "magic" of dosage is reminiscent of dystopian future stories. Don't even get me started on the side-effects of these things. When it comes out that some kid who just shot up something and he was just "off his meds" and that's the end of the story; we've all lost. The news is going to tell you that you should stay on your meds and everything is going to be okay and they are fucking liars. Their advertisers are Phizer and Glaxo. Mental health issues are not solved by drugs alone. People need to be taught how to do things. You need to be taught how to tie your shoes, you need to be taught how to do math, you need to be taught how to treat people, you need to be taught how to understand your own thinking and feeling, you need to be taught how to deal with your problems. It is good hygiene for everyone to know themselves but it's especially important for those who have problems understanding their thinking and feeling (for whatever reason) to get help learning why and learning how to manage.

Amazingly, surprisingly, coincidentally, facing this head on will also help most of those other societal issues subside. Consider the reasons for obesity, the reasons for drug abuse, the reasons for domestic abuse, the reasons for materialism, the reasons for hate; taking away guns and/or handing out guns can't do that. 

But, what do you care? You just want to post a stupid meme on the facepage.