IT'S TIME TO GET REAL: GUNS AREN'T WHAT'S KILLING PEOPLE

 On a day typically reserved for sharing how much you love your significant other, your friends, family, and children, 17 families learned that the last words they exchanged with their children, spouses, and friends that day would be the last they'd ever hear from them.

I learned about the shooting taking place at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.   via the "story" on a news agency's Snapchat feed. I, like many Americans, felt an initial sadness in my heart that quickly grew to anger and confusion.

When you're angry about something, it is easy to find the quickest thing involved in the situation to blame. Unfortunately, I think this has led to one of the biggest issues facing America today: a lack of placing the blame where it actually belongs.

Have you watched the news lately? The only thing that you hear about following a mass shooting is how mentally disturbed the shooter was and perhaps a feature piece on the victims, but most of the coverage is dedicated to re-sparking the gun control debate. 

Let's be honest folks, guns aren't what kill people. You could sit a gun on a front porch and it isn't going to harm anyone unless someone picks it up and pulls the trigger. The problem with American is starkly illustrated by the fact that blame is never put where it belongs.

Look at the facts: According to a June 2017 study published by the Pew Research Center, about 30 percent of Americans own a gun. While that leaves about 70 percent of Americans without guns, 36 percent of that 70 percent said they could see themselves owning a gun in the future.

Overwhelmingly, the facts show that legal gun owners aren't actually doing much crime with their firearms. In 2016, The Washington Post sited that a University of Pittsburg study found that less than one-fifth of gun crimes were committed by legal gun owners. While many reports show that 80 percent of mass shooting weapons are purchased legally, that doesn't mean that the person actually using the gun is legally authorized to do so. You see this with underaged students who take their parent's gun to school. In the case of the San Bernardino shootings, the male shooter, Syed Rizwan Farook, purchased two pistols legally, but the two rifles used in the shooting were not purchased by him. As you can see, the stats can become skewed when taking these points in mind.
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Because legal gun owners do far fewer of the gun crimes, how can people call for an overhaul of gun ownership laws? How can people call for the removal of guns from legal and responsible owners' homes?

SO WHAT'S THE REAL PROBLEM?

The real problem with mass shootings is all about the psychology. Today's world if full of technology and mental illnesses that can contribute to someone's inclination to become a mass shooter. Here are just a few of the things that can lead to this:

DESENSITIZATION

As much as I hate to admit it as a lover of video games myself, video games and graphic movies have gone a long way in convincing malleable minds that death isn't as serious as it seems.

While I believe that healthy adults can choose whether they let graphic games and movies influence their decisions, studies are clear that these can cause a number of issues in children, teens, and those with underlying mental health issues.

One glaring example of this comes from the infamous Columbine shooting. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris entered their high school and subsequently shot and killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves. The two were obsessed with the first-person shooter game Doom. It is alleged that the two came up with the plot to kill their classmates when playing the game and even designed custom levels that closely resembled the floor plan of their school.

RADICALIZATION

More recent mass killings/mass shootings are the result of radicalization by extremist groups. While many of them are motivated or claim to be motivated by groups like ISIS, those aren't the only groups that incite violence.

Again, back to the Columbine shooters, these two were also radicalized after reading material written by Hitler. They believed that other races and people who believed in God needed to be wiped off of the face of the Earth alongside anyone they didn't deem worthy enough to live.

MENTAL ILLNESS

Undiagnosed or otherwise, mental illness is often an issue that can lead to mass shootings. Unfortunately, our country is far too concerned with profit than it is with providing adequate healthcare to those who need it.

In truth, we live in a society that tells people that they can just "get over" their mental illnesses. This is farthest from the truth. Mental illness is often medicated with prescriptions or mediation. Sometimes people who aren't given proper care turn to things like drugs and alcohol to mend their woes.

Personally, I've been told by various religious peoples as well as friends that I should just "get over" my anxiety disorder. They don't understand that my brain isn't wired like theirs is. They don't get that I sometimes need to decompress and often have trouble focusing. They don't get the overwhelming sense of panic that can occasionally wash over me, nor do they understand what my mind does when it overthinks the things I said to someone that could have possibly offended them. These aren't things that we can brush to the side without consequence.

BULLYING

Bullying has no doubt taken on a new form in today's society. When I was in middle school, I knew who my bullies were. I knew who took my purse and hid it in the boys room when I had short hair. They did it in an attempt to embarrass me, and it worked. 

Today, kids are able to create online personas where they can actively bully people without facing physical or emotional ramifications for their actions. Cyberbulling is hard to peg and can be misinterpreted as free speech, although it actively puts down often underaged teens or children.

Despite what schools would want you to believe, the number of children and teens being bullied is just as high if not higher than it was only a few years ago. Many school shooters were often labeled as outcasts and were ostracized or made fun of by the "popular" kids. No one reported this or passed on the information to faculty that could deal with the situation.

LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY

Someone taking accountability for their actions can go a long way in them learning a lesson. A lot of people today are not held fully accountable for their actions. Many of their actions are considered illegal, but the people fight against it because they feel that, socially, their non-compliance with the law should be accepted.

For example, many people applaud those who openly fight and argue with police officers because they feel that our system should be changed and questioned. That ultimately leads to more injuries and deaths during these situations. Instead, if a person who committed a crime just took accountability, they might actually learn that they can't always have things their way and throwing tantrum and threatening to kill or injure someone because they hurt their feelings or disagreed with them is unacceptable.

CONCLUSION

As you can see, it is blatantly the person behind the weapon that causes the real harm. Many people are able to control guns safely and responsibly to help enforce the safety of the areas around them. Why should those people be punished when mentally ill people or those who are psychologically brainwashed and radicalized are the ones doing the crimes?

Our country has done a real disservice to its citizens, not because it doesn't ultimately demand and enforce stricter gun laws, but because its leaders refuse to acknowledge and offer proper care to the mentally ill, its media actively promotes the devaluation of human life to malleable minds and the mentally ill, and its parents don't make their children accountable for their actions.