Here we go again. Another day, another mass shooting. This type of thing has occurred with such regularity that the American populace is slowly becoming numbed to it. Yesterday, a gun man, working alone, took out 26 innocent church-goers before being killed himself. Here is an article from the Washington Post about the incident:
Perhaps there will be a little bit of conversation about gun rights, surely this will take up a day or two of our 24 hour news cycle.
Will we take actionable steps towards changing things though? Probably not. It does not seem to be in our blood at this point. Mostly because we haven’t the faintest idea of what to do about it. It would require a comprehensive strategy of identifying non-violence groups in neighborhoods and mapping their assets. Then facilitating the development of a local, community based strategies that include a list of actionable steps towards this common goal. It requires significant evidence to be collected in order to pin point where the requisite resources should be applied.
This “all hands one deck” type of strategy that leverages existing mental, behavioral, and public health resources is rarely discussed. Instead, we meekly suggested SOMETHING should be done, and that that SOMETHING should require a law that limits the sales of guns and provides larger background checks, etc. The problem is, most of these individuals claiming responsibility for these heinous acts would still slip through the cracks, even with new laws in place. Additionally, the black market for gun sales is, and always will be, a very real issue.
So let’s take a moment to reflect on what actually needs to be done, because we are due for another “shocking” mass shooting in three weeks or so. Harnessing the power of our mental, behavioral, and public health resources is crucial, but we will probably not hear about this from the major news outlets, we will have to make this happen on our own.