That we had yet another school shooting certainly has not escaped anyone’s attention. Of course this was followed immediately with the usual fare of “debate” about guns and “the right to keep and bear arms” vs the right of the general public to not get shot on random days. The discussion is then leavened with remarks about the need for mental health treatments. The latter statements are particularly ironic since the mental health industry has never in its existence cured a propensity to violence.

It is a bottom-line fact that there are more guns in the United States than any given war zone in the world. And somehow these guns periodically get into the hands of someone who thinks it is a good idea to shoot up a school, a workplace, a music event. Sure the shooter is nuts—someone so deeply in the grip of mental demons that the people around them have become enemies that must be wiped out.

The mental health industry’s failure to prevent violence is not isolated to our country. It is just that the crazies here can get guns more easily than anywhere else in the world. So they use them instead of knives, swords, clubs and bombs like in other places.

And nowhere else in the world is a country saddled with the peculiarly worded phrases of our Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Let’s examine this a bit. A militia is defined as “a military force that is raised from the civil population to supplement a regular army in an emergency.”

And security is defined as “the state of being free from danger or threat.”

Thus, a lay reading of the Second Amendment results in “the right to keep and bear arms is directly associated with supplementing a military force for the keeping the state free from danger or threat.” Pretty simple.

But then business comes into the picture. The marketing and lobbying efforts of the NRA only focus attention on the “right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” part of the Amendment. So successful have their efforts been that they have created the impression that regulation of arms in any way violates the whole amendment. That’s strange since the word regulated is right there.

As written in an earlier piece over two years ago, the Republican Party and the NRA have created the impression that the Second Amendment might as well be the whole Constitution. Indeed, propaganda floating around on social media warns that if Harris/Walz win in November, the 1st, 2nd, 4th and other Amendments including the 14th and 15th will be overthrown. This is ironic since these, except for the 2nd, are targeted for attack in Project 2025.

No, the real problem with guns in America is the guns in America coupled the insane lack of regulation of their possession and use. Rightwing states like Florida and now Georgia allow for concealed carry with no license. The least surprising thing to see in Texas is someone walking around with an assault rifle—you know the kind used to go after those really dangerous Taliban deer and elk.

Regulation is the operative word. But when a Democratic administration comes into power, the NRA and its mouthpieces start circulating the rumors that, “They’re coming for your guns! Make sure to go and buy more!” Thus they gloss over that the lack of regulation of guns violates the very same Second Amendment they so avidly clutch to the chests.

Let’s circle back the mental health factor as it relates to guns, or other kinds of violence. It is well documented that psychiatric drugs can and do cause violent behaviors. As earlier mentioned, mental health practitioners actually have no solutions to violent patients from a therapeutic standpoint. Many will disagree with this assertion, but won’t have any cases to back it up. But there are cases that show how ineffective mental health practitioners really are. A major case in point is the Aurora, Colorado theater massacre. The shooter was in sessions with his psychiatrist prior to entering the theater with his weapon.

What the mental therapy industry does have is drugs. Slews of them. But these don’t really do anything but suppress symptoms, they hope. But they are easy to prescribe and endlessly profitable for the drug companies—since they are also largely habit forming.

If this paints a bleak picture of the situation, it should. It is not good. Profit motives from two sectors are preying on the very lives of the general public. And regulation, while equally hated by both the gun industry and Big Pharma is really the only path forward.

It is way past the time for us to follow the example set by Jacinda Ardern when she was Prime Minister of New Zealand when she forced through an assault weapon ban after a heinous domestic terrorist attack.

Another idea is to hold the parents or other providers of weapons used by shooters accountable for the actions of that shooter. Precedent was set for this by the sentencing of the parents of Michigan shooter Ethan Crumbley to 10 years for their complicity in his crimes.

We need to take guns entirely out of the reach of drugged up and mental unstable teens, their parents or any other crazies—like maybe the unregulated militias running around shooting up the woods.