People are furious about mass shootings. They are disgusted by them, scared that mass shootings will reach their lives, and petrified that mass shootings will end up killing their children. And those fears are completely understandable.
Anti-2A zealots stoke those fears and tell people that unless more strict gun control is put into place, more mass shootings will happen, that more people will die from firearms.
But there’s one thing that the anti-2A side of things never addresses, and if you think about it, it’s really the elephant in the room when it comes to the conversation about gun control (hat tip to here for the lead). Nike Goeser, a victim of gun violence, writes.
Every state in the nation has some type of involuntary commitment law that can be used to remove guns from dangerously mentally ill individuals and get them the help they need. The problem is, people are not using them. Is it because people don’t know about the laws? Or is it because people don’t want to go through the proper legal process of reporting and providing real evidence regarding someone who is dangerous?
Goeser continues:
As a victim who also supports the basic human right of self defense and gun ownership, I’m tired of gun-control being the number one political agenda after something awful like this happens. It’s easier for liberals to blame guns than their own mental health professionals and institutions.
It’s time to stop blaming guns and get serious about mental health and the resources that are already available to help protect society from dangerous people.
So, wait, is a victim of gun violence, who saw “a mentally ill stalker […] murder my husband in-front of me,” telling us that something in the existing laws could have been used to prevent her husband’s killer from doing that and to prevent such horrible shootings as the Nashville school shooting, among others?
Yes, that’s exactly what Goeser is saying. She is saying that we don’t need more gun laws. We need to actually use the laws on the books to stop mentally ill people with known violent fantasies and/or tendencies from being able to act on those horrible desires.
But doing something like that wouldn’t allow the anti-2A side of the aisle to use the issue to push ignorant, emotionally-focused people to vote for their side of the political aisle.
Put another way: Anti-2A politicians don’t care about gun violence and saving lives. Those are just issues to get people stirred up and voting for them.
