I've just been rendered speechless by what Mark Mattioli, father of one of the victims at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut, has mentioned in regards to gun control. Per Huffington Post, Mattioli has now praises the NRA's plan.
His argument? It's entirely a mental health issue.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Mark Mattioli, whose six-year-old son, James, was killed in the December shooting, spoke during a NRA press conference on the pro-gun organization's new school safety proposals.
"I wanted to take a minute and applaud ... the NRA for coming up and spending the time and resources on putting a program like this together," Mattioli said. "We send our children off to school. There are certain expectations and obviously in Sandy Hook, those expectations were not met."
Mattioli continued, "If you look what took place in Sandy Hook, mental health is a huge component of that. We need to focus research attention, research. We need the kids to be safe."
Let me be the first to say my heart goes out to Mark Mattioli for the loss of his son, which should have never happened in the first place. He deserves a lot of support as I can't fathom how much pain he's going through right now.
However, I take issue with Mattioli's belief that this is entirely a mental health issue. While it's important to address mental health, what is research and attention going to do in the short-term that will resolve the biggest problems of gun control?
Dealing with such a matter requires a change in attitude and approach. Communities and researchers in medicine U.S. can overtime better understand the motives behind one person before guns and bullets are actually purchased. It's also possible to provide a better support network and openness towards people who have mental health problems or at least feel like loners, shy or are at least don't fit in the "normal" crowd as most of us do. Treatment can be given and so can reaching out to these people.
But such a process takes time and time is not something we have. We've gone through the Columbine shootings in 1999, the Virginia Tech shootings, the Arizona shootings were Gabrielle Giffords was a victim, the Aurora Colorado shootings, the Sheikh murders and now the Newton, Connecticut shootings. Of course, there's many other stories not reported in the news but such stories reveal a lot of other shootings in states across the U.S.
Therefore, addressing mental health by research and awareness in the short-term really won't prevent shootings from happening or the notion that people can actually purchase guns and ammunition thanks to the lax laws we have in the U.S. Is it important to address mental health issues? Yes. This can prevent incidents like the Newton, Connecticut killings from happening in the future although the issue is more complicated than that. Gun deaths happen in a number of different scenarios: Schools, movie theatres, malls, you name it.
However, while we address the mental health issues now and in the long run, there are still going to be additional gun and ammunition purchases by people from mental health issues and deaths could occur as a result. Every day that an additional death happens as a result of guns is a tragedy.
So the bottom line is:
Yes, we need a comprehensive background check and we need it to be effective, not half-assed.
We also an assault weapons ban but we also need to make clear what we define as assault weapons so that it's clear the U.S. government isn't looking to ban guns used for hunting or simple guns that anyone can use in self-defense. I say we should make sure we get the definition down right and point it out to the 2nd Amendment worshipers. In fact, we should have a permanent assault weapons ban.
If the 2nd Amendment worshipers don't like this? Well, too bad for them. We need to wake them up so the U.S. doesn't become the butt of jokes by a number of countries like the UK, France, Norway, Australia and even Canada.
How many more gun deaths will it take for people to get off their high horse and realize we DO need gun control and there's no way we can avoid it? Will gun control be enough? No, but we can't avoid it either.
Let me make a point that as a native of Berkeley, California, I know there have been deaths and shootings all across the East Bay (Richmond, San Pablo, Pinole, West Oakland, East Oakland, Fruitvale, etc.) and areas like East Palo Alto and San Francisco and each shooting isn't entirely because of a mental health issue. It's apart of culture to a certain degree.
Michael Moore makes a good point here that the Newton, Connecticut tragedy has shaped the landscape: