Guns, Mental Illness and America: A Special Edition of Burning Questions from Ms. Meltingpot

Hello Meltingpot Readers,

I am not one to use my blog to promote my political beliefs or push forth my personal agenda. But today, that is going to change. I always said that I wanted to be a writer so I could write/right the wrongs of the world, and I have never felt more strongly about something being wrong in this world than the culture of gun worship in this country.

In light of the horrific incidents that happened in Newton, Connecticut this past Friday, I am dedicating today’s post to the very real fight of changing the gun laws in the United States. This is only the beginning, but I will continue to use the power afforded me as a writer to keep spreading the words of anger and injustice I feel towards a law that allows a small amount of people to destroy the lives of thousand.

Because I know people are tired of reading long essays about the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I am just going to pose a few burning questions here that hopefully will make you think and then, hopefully, act.

1. How is any mother, father, aunt, uncle or friend supposed to be able to sleep at night with the image of their six-year old child being viciously gunned down by a mad man always in their mind? I can barely contain my despair and I didn’t even know these poor children.

2. Why do the people of Newton, CT describe their town as ‘safe’ and ‘the kind of place where these things don’t happen’ when the town is full of gun enthusiasts who stock pile weapons? Don’t people know that when there are guns around, the likelihood of gun violence rises dramatically?

3. Why are people acting like what happened in Connecticut should be an either/or debate pitting mental health care against gun control laws? Isn’t it obvious that as a country we need to address both issues, not one or the other?

4. I understand the desire to understand why Adam Lanza killed all of these people, but does anybody really believe that even if a note is discovered or a plot revealed, it will all make sense? There is no explanation that is going to make the carnage that occurred last Friday understandable. If the boy did in fact suffer from a mental illness like schizophrenia, the ‘explanation’ will only make sense to the voices in Lanza’s head. But I will offer my own personal opinion here. If Lanza did hear voices that told him to do terrible things, then having access to and training in the use of  assault rifles provided him the tools to act on his impulses. No guns in the house would have severely limited his abilities to cause harm.

5. And finally, what is it going to take for Americans to stand up to the NRA and the relatively few gun enthusiasts in this country, so that we can make it impossible for folks, either mentally ill or completely stable, to walk into a store like Wal-Mart and purchase a killing machine? How many more innocent people are going to have to die before we DO SOMETHING?

If you want to do something, but don’t know what exactly, you can start by writing to President Obama or your local senator and tell them that you want them to do something so that we don’t have to live in fear anymore.

Thanks for listening. Do you have any questions you want to add? I’m right here with you.

Peace!