We have worn deep the path of least resistance, better known as the easy way, especially our politicians. We come to quick judgment spurred by a media reporting guesses and gossip as facts.
The media knew little about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter or his mother yet reported details later proven incorrect. Politicians and the media now are offering gun control as the solution.
There are too many guns in our society and their easy access "exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it," as Bob Costas controversially stated. Ensuring gun purchasers are stable members of society is important. Anyone who can't be patient enough to wait for the clearance process should probably not have a gun.
Yet, the root cause of this tragedy is not easy access to guns, it is inadequate mental health care and our society's stigma of mental illness. Easy access to guns was absolutely a component of this tragedy, but this mentally ill person was clearly capable of developing other equally lethal methods of making us take notice of him. The same politicians that tout gun control as the solution are responsible for the gutting of mental health services.
A report issued in March 2011 by the National Alliance on Mental Illness says: "States have cut vital services for tens of thousands of youth and adults living with the most serious mental illness. These services include community and hospital-based psychiatric care, housing and access to medications."
If this does not help everyone, consider that our government and society turning their backs on these individuals is part of the problem, read this cry for help: http://tinyurl.com/c6axjz2.
We may never know if the Sandy Hook shooter had access to mental health services. We may never know if his mother felt the same as the mother in the above essay feels. But if we continue on the path of least resistance there will be another mentally ill person making the same tragic news again.
ROGER COLLEN
Menands