An Adult Solution To Prevent Mass Killings - An Update

 It is time for adults to step up and put aside the notion that nothing can be done to prevent such mass shooting tragedies as happen in Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, and Sutherland Springs. In Sandy Hook 20 children and 6 adults were killed in a span of eleven minutes.  In Las Vegas there were 58 deaths, not counting the shooter, and 527 wounded in a fifteen-minute span of time.  In Sutherland Springs there were 26 killed, including 14 children and 20 wounded. In each of these three incidents it was a single angry man who pulled the trigger and caused such carnage.

We need to accept the fact that the three individuals who killed and wounded hundreds of people were angry, acting out individuals. People become angry because they are hurting, feeling emotional pain.  They hurt because some essential need for loving attachment, acknowledgment and security has gone unmet. Their anger is a means of protecting themselves from their hurt.  It is also a way to lash out against and punish those who these individuals feel are responsible for causing their pain. Theirs is specifically an anger management issue where they are unable to prevent themselves from acting out against others. This is an anger issue that is different from someone who is demonstrating irritability, annoyance, or frustration that is within the bounds of normal control for the individual who is having such feelings. 

The important thing is, that identifying someone as having an anger management problem does not characterize all mental illness with a large brush stroke as being the cause of such acts of violence. Those, who have anger management issues, are the specific group we can identify as having a documented police record of expressing such angry acting out behavior. Or, these are individuals who have, in retrospect, indicated unresolved anger issues that are the cause of their acting out behavior.

There are three things that we can do that would have prevented these situations: 

1.  The creation and implementation of a required and uniform background check that is standard throughout the United States that will identify whether or not someone should be prevented from purchasing a gun or owning one.  Federal Law under the Gun Control Act of 1988 is such a requirement. The Gun Control Act of 1988 clearly stipulates that individuals in the following categories are prohibited from buying or owning firearms:

*   Individuals who have been convicted have, or are under indictment
    for, a crime punishable by imprisonment for more than one year.

*   Is a fugitive from justice.

*   Is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance.

*   Is underage.

*   Has been adjudicated as mental defective or committed to a mental 
     institution.                            

*   Is unlawfully in the United States or has been admitted to the U.S. 
     under a nonimmagrant status.

*   Has been dishonorably discharged from the military.

*   Has renounced his or her U.S. citizenship.

*   Is subject to a court order retraining him or her from harassing, 

     stalking or threatening an intimate partner, his or her child, 

     or a child of a partner, or engaging in other conduct that would 

     place an intimate partner in reasonable fear of bodily injury to

     partner or child.

*  A person has been convicted of a misdemeanor offense of domestic 
    violence.

                      

 In point of truth, many states cherry pick which of these categories they will address in their version of implementing these directives. The fact that the Air Force did not inform the F.B.I. data bank about the Texas shooter’s background is an example of what happens when reporting agencies fail to report those who are not to purchase firearms. Over the years, in cases where reporting has taken place, over three million individuals have been denied the ability to purchase a firearm.

2.  Firearms with large capacity and potential for firing numerous rounds in a short period of time should be ban from public ownership.

Our Second Amendment Right to own firearms for protection, hunting and recreational shooting is not under attack. It is large capacity killing machines that should be banned from their random availability to the public. These are the types of firearms or firearm components that have allowed one person to kill fifty-eight and wound five hundred and twenty-seven people in fifteen minutes. The average citizen does not need such weaponry.   

3. In addition, a Life Issues and Skills Curriculum needs to be created and implemented in all public schools beginning in preschool and continuing through high school. Children learn about their needs and feelings, about how to listen, be present with, and compassionately communicate with their classmates. In this curriculum children learn how to acknowledge one another and how to cooperate and work with one another. They learn how to consciously problem-solve life issues as well as, internal and external conflicts. They would learn that there are others that they can turn to in times of difficulty and suffering. How many lives do you suppose would have been saved if such a program were an ongoing part of our public school culture?

This education process will take several generations to accomplish the laying of a societal foundation for such an approach to learning necessary life skills for our children.  A supportive aspect to this education experience will require a public health component to be created and implemented utilizing media platforms to reach those who are beyond their school age experience. Funding of mental health support services need to be implemented, as well, and made a priority. The old notion that mental health services cannot prevent mass shooting, so to cut funding doesn’t matter, is not true and is out of the question.

In the adult world there are immediate steps that we can take to make mass killings more difficult. We simply need to take them, now.