I will gladly admit that it has been one hell of a past few weeks for America as a country. We’ve had three (we have had more, but these three are the most covered) mass shootings: Gilroy Garlic Festical, El Passo Walmart, and Dayton Downtown.

At the risk of sounding like an asshole, which I do not mean to, I want to put my opinions in on these matters. You should know that my opinion is mine, and while you may disagree, you cannot deny my opinion. I can respect what you believe, and I only expect you to do the same. There is no argument to be made here.

Firstly, these mass shootings simply shouldn’t have happened, can we all agree on that? No one is happy about a bunch of people getting massacred. If you do find it funny, or courageous what these shooters did, I ask you to kindly and quietly to leave here.

On the subject of Trump

I have no problem admitting that I do have a problem with Trump. I don’t believe he is the President that America needs at this time, but he’s what we’ve got until election time. I can deal with that, as long as I don’t see the man become power-hungry, and start wars in order to get elected for a second term. Do I believe he can be held responsible for these shootings? Hell no. At least, mostly no. If these young, impressionable minds found something Trump had said to be a nod in acceptance of going out and shooting people on a massive scale, you might be right. But, did Trump actually mean go out and commit murder? Of course not! Trump may be an idiot, but I don’t think he would be dumb enough to persuade American citizens to start killing others– citizens or not. I believe Trump is trying to do right by the country, but is far too inexperienced to be in a position of his power.

On the subject of racism

Does racism play a part in these shootings? Yeah, to some degree. Racists exist, and they, for intents and purposes, have always existed. Do I push direct blame on racism for these shootings? Again, no. While it may have played a role, it certainly was not the sole reason behind the shootings. This country has once legally allowed racism, slavery, and segregation, and back then we still weren’t producing these mass shootings. It doesn’t take a scientist to come to the conclusion that racism isn’t the only issue here, and in some shootings, not the issue at all.

On the subject of mental health

This one is tough, knowing my history of struggles with mental health (still ongoing, but better, yay).

Does mental health play a role is these mass murders? Ab-so-lutely. If you possess the ability to plan, prepare, and carry out an attack on a scale such as what happened at these three locations, you are mentally fucked. There’s no doubt about that. To throw away any what ever self preservation you have left in order to commit murder on this kind of level, you need help.

As always, this is not the sole excuse for a shooting. To be honest, there will never be just some simple explanation for someone carrying out an attack like this. As far as mental health goes, these people are not weak-minded. It takes a lot of mental ability to keep your mind calm while going through the processes of planning and committing to these attacks. The mental deficiency is one that lacks very basic and common empathy. These people do not care about others, they hate and kill with little to no bias. These people are angry, hurt, or upset to the point of exploding in this violent manner. To spot these individuals should be relatively easy, there are reports of red flags on all of these occurrences.

So, yes. Mental health plays a significant part in every event like this. Where my issue is, is how to go about investigating these red flags. I’m sure that if every red flag would be looked into, we would see that there is a heavily unbalanced ratio of real to not real signs of impending violence. You see, it’s human nature to imagine and think about horrible things, because it acts as a sanity check for ourselves. When you cross the line into actually believing it’s okay to act on those thoughts is where the issue lies. The problem with that, is only the person who is thinking and assessing themselves really knows when they’ve crossed that line. Others can speculate, but they’ll never really know. I only wish that mental help was more accessible and affordable for everyone, as I do believe that would help decrease the amount of violence on this scale.

On the subject of firearms

Are firearms to blame for mass shootings? Is that a question?

No, seriously, did you just read that paradox and think nothing of it? If so, please read the next sentence very slowly: Firearms are an essential tool in mass shootings.

I own multiple firearms. I enjoy shooting my firearms. I think that firearms are fascinating, truly. I do not want to give up my firearms because I am a responsible owner, who knows gun safety in both storage and shooting. It would suck to have to give all of our guns up because a certain percentage of people lack this same knowledge. I understand there would be outrage if it came down to that, and I agree, I would be upset. But, if I have to give my weapons up to prevent these atrocities, then I fucking will. Because that is what is right. It’s how discipline works in humans, if you can’t all share and get along, none of you get the [BLANK]. Remember your childhood? (Sorry all of you single children, maybe you remember daycare?)

If you have experienced that discipline before, you also have seen what happens further down the road… You might actually get the thing back, under certain terms. So, this means if we gave up our guns right now to immediately remedy the rampant gun violence we have, then we can work to create a better solution on how to handle gun ownership in America and begin reintroducing them back into society. I understand this is an extreme method of going about this, but I do believe we are nearing this point in our nation.

I understand that there will still need to people who require firearms, such as police, military, and others, and I know that firearms will still be accessible in those means. That means that gun violent will still occur, and possibly on a large scale yet, but the frequency of these attacks should drop dramatically.

Let’s think about this from a different perspective. Hypothetically, lets say all of America’s gun are replaced with grenades. What is the likely hood that grenade related massacres occur? I’d say very likely. Now, how much of a push for removing grenades from the hands of citizens do you think would appear? I would say about a shit load. This hypothetical is extreme, but the theory behind it is solid. People would want the grenades gone, because there’s nothing more scary than someone having the ability to throw a “rock” into a crowd and murder a bunch of people indiscriminately. Guns are able to do the same thing, they just require a human companion to achieve this. Why not just get rid of them for a while?

Well, really, this all comes down to politics and money. The guns stay because the NRA, and the huge piles of cash that flows in favor for the availability, accessibility , and persistence of firearms. Politicians can be bought, as studies have proven, and it sucks. People can be persuaded and dissuaded into something with just simple cash, albeit usually a large sum. Politicians should not be consumerism for governing a country, cause that’s how you get America, and inherit it’s problems. Politicians should be politicians because they can stand on moral principles and full-heatedly believe what they believe. If people agree with them, that’s how they should win elections, not through money, or really any tangible thing. They should only use their wisdom, beliefs, and the trust built over years of experience with people.

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Sorry, I wen’t off on a small tangent there at the end. I just had to add a few extra thoughts on guns because it’s probably the most controversial of all of these topics.

I’d also like to put in a few more words about mental health that didn’t really have a place up there. Specifically, my own mental health.

I am good, so don’t worry about me, but I wanted to let you know where I’ve been mentally. In no particular way, I was abused as a child, and it caused be a lot of stress, depression, frustration, and anxiety about many things, and for a very long part of my life. I also was unable to develop a solid coping mechanism for a very long time, and still have plenty of work to do.

So, at a younger age, when I was hurting and had no one to tell, talk to, or any other form of venting, I wrote in a notebook. I still own this notebook, and really don’t like reading through it, because it brings the hurt child in me back to the foreground. In this notebook is mainly a bunch of comics. I drew short cartoons, many of them included awful things, like racism, sex, and violence. There are some seriously awful things in that notebook. I don’t want to even tell the world this, it’s so bad. If someone saw that notebook today, I’m sure I would be setting off a shit-load of red flags, and I honestly couldn’t blame whoever found them for telling me to get help, or thinking of me very differently. But, I was young, and it was the only thing that seemed to help me at the time.

So, yeah, I have in my possession, something that if I were ever to commit a violent crime on a large scale, that would be pretty damning to my personal image. I do not intend on ever harming anyone in any manner, but I also am not going to try and judge anyone on some of the content that they may have created while in a dark place in their life. Chances are, that content was the only thing that was keeping them from committing these crimes earlier on. Maybe it also manifests into what causes a mass shooting, I do not know.

To end this, I just want to reiterate, if you disagree with my opinions, I don’t need to hear any arguments against me, unless done so in a positive, and constructive way, as that is how we would solve this whole issue to begin with. If you can agree to those terms, I will be happy to have a real meaningful discussion about this. If you can’t have an opinion and respect mine, I will simply ignore you, because I understand that you will not even attempt to have a civil, useful, maybe even helpful, and positive discussion.

Also, if you’ve actually read all of this, I feel the need to applaud you and thank you for taking the time to read it all.

One laaaast thing! On the subject of video games
Video games don’t make people violent. Get the fuck outta here with that shit.