Improved Mental Health Treatment Won’t Impact Mass Shootings or School Killings
The problem is the surprisingly easy access teens and young adults have to not just one gun, but multiple guns and nearly limitless ammunition. Lock down your guns and ammunition and restrict their access to your children, teens and young adults — unless you’re around to supervise. Even guns the teen may own. This would go a long way to helping prevent future tragedies.2
This infringes on nobody’s rights. All it does is put up a barrier to impair — and perhaps prevent — a distraught teen or young adult from grabbing a gun and killing a bunch of people. If every American gun owner committed to restricting and curtailing unsupervised access of their guns to their children, teens and young adults, I think that would have a much greater impact than more mental health treatment ever would.3
I know it can be extremely challenging as a parent, but also being a more involved parent in your teen or young adult’s life might help too. That costs no money, restricts nobody’s civil liberties, and just requires a little more commitment and effort on a parent’s part. While I understand teens can sometimes be moody and secretive, we shouldn’t use a broad generalization as an excuse from disconnecting from their lives. “But they don’t want me in their life!” is the common retort. Well, as long as they live in your home and you pay their bills, guess what — you still have the power (and responsibility) to keep parenting them. And that means involving yourself in their life to some degree and understanding what they’re up to.
None of this, however, will stop future school shootings or mass murders. But a combination of these two latter things — restricting access to guns and ammunition, and being a more involved parent — might just help reduce their occurrence.
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