America has a mental
healthcare issue, not a gun control issue.
Guns are a ubiquitous presence, a genie un-bottled. Common sense laws might flux the rate of
homicides by plus or minus five percent.
A properly funded mental healthcare system as a component of a universal
system rebuilt from the ground up might affect mass homicides through gun
violence by an exponential percentage greater.
Is that empirically based, most studies show it is. Mental healthcare is the common sense reform
that is needed.
These small wars over
gun show loop holes or access are a distraction from the human condition, the
human heart, and love, empathy and understanding at the root of almost every
tragedy on our planet. Even climate change
is an empathy issue. There is a reason
powers on both sides of the aisle will not face this reality and it is because
it puts faith in the volition of people on the fringe who are most often used
as a border to keep those in the middle afraid to accommodate the profiteering
of those empowered. Love has a price tag
and it is a function of how much we invest in empathy, not walls, prohibition,
or vengeance. A child learns far more
from a well-placed hug than a beating.
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