A wise old Iowa farmer once told his son, “If it’s broken, you can’t fix it until you know why it broke.” The question is valid and needs to be applied to the problems of our day.
There is much angst, worry, and concern over recent events in our country involving the mass shooting of innocent people. Politicians are running to the TV cameras to explain how they will “fix it.” A plausible answer has yet to emerge from the chest-pounding and vote-seeking noise we are hearing.
Will simply writing new laws on a piece of paper solve the situation?
If new laws are to be written, doesn’t it make common sense to figure out why the mass shootings occurred in the first place? We know that mental illness was an issue in many of these shootings. In some cases, the shooter knew his actions would end with their death as they planned to commit suicide.
In searching for the answer to why things are broken, we must look at the situation’s causes; without accurate answers to “why,” the problem will never be “fixed” appropriately.
In the entire history of man, there is no recorded incident where a caveman’s ax, a soldier’s sword, a knife, a pair of scissors, a firearm, or any other inert object jumped off a shelf or out of a drawer, ran into the street and killed masses of people. It has never happened and never will for the simple reason that it is impossible.
However, there is a history of people putting poison in another person’s food, strangling them to death with their hands, stabbing a person repeatably, hitting them with a hard object such as a stone or hammer, and shooting them with a gun or holding their heads underwater until they drowned.
The subject of the two preceding paragraphs needs to be the foundation for the argument on how to fix what is broken in our society concerning mass shootings. Separate what is inert from human actions. Remove the passion and unfounded discourse. Hold reasonable discussions on destructive human behaviors and how to deal with them. Are there ways to prevent these heinous actions from happening in the first place?
The primary question is why all these shooters killed masses of people in schools, churches and concerts or those simply watching a Fourth of July parade.
The firearms used in these mass killings did not make their way to a rooftop or seclude themselves in a high hotel room to have an advantage over their unsuspecting victims. The guns did not load themselves, take aim and pull their triggers. A human with mental problems did. The children and teachers killed in the massacre at the Uvalde, Texas, school resulted from a mentally disturbed person walking into the building and opening fire.
Murders primarily result from anger, passion, greed, or mental disorder. At times, a combination of any of the four. A government study sites intimate partner violence, mental health problems, and substance abuse as the primary homicide causes.
In most cases involving mass shootings, mental health is the primary reason. The individuals committing the crimes had mental problems and were known to authorities before the tragic events. Why weren’t these events prevented and many lives saved?
A much better system to identify and prevent individuals with mental issues from committing the shootings would be a giant step forward in solving the problem. We already have the basics for such a system; however, it needs much refinement and rebuilding.
Of course, we must be cautious that the process of obtaining and monitoring information on private individuals is handled so as not to infringe on our free rights as guaranteed by the Constitution.
Under our current system, an individual with a particular mental issue can legally be identified, giving authorities the opportunity and obligation to monitor that person. However, the system must share this information with a broader group of the proper authorities and establish trigger points when serious intervention is needed. The sharing of information is critical. Authorities must have the freedom and structure to act positively and proactively.
If people with dangerous mental conditions are identified, monitored, and prevented access to firearms, explosives, and other hazardous means to kill, it would be a huge step toward solving the mass shooting problems in the future.
Paraphrasing the old Iowa farmer, “Now we know why the mass murders occur; let’s move forward and fix it.”
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