Gun violence (continued)...

When someone has the feeling that the whole world is against them, or that nobody understands them or cares to, and they have mental health issues which they either don't recognize or don't admit to having, those nearest to them who are in a position to monitor the person's mental state ought to have the power to request and receive help, and that help ought to begin by removing any firearms from the disturbed person's residence. That wouldn't be a foolproof solution, because there might be firearms hidden elsewhere, but it's a logical start. And there's nothing life-threatening about a psychiatric exam. On the contrary, it might be the beginning of much-needed treatment and rehabilitation for its recipient. It worked for me, and I'm not trying to be facetious here.

That's how I found out I'm a manic-depressive, and began getting some really excellent treatment for it, which resulted in my being able to continue my career and enjoy a relatively normal life - instead of possibly drinking myself to death or shooting someone, or possibly both. So this problem of disturbed people with access to firearms is one that I take very personally and very seriously, because I have some first-hand experience with it. I thank God that others around me knew what to do and did it in time to prevent a disaster.

The NRA says that guns don't kill people; people kill people. And that's true as far as it goes. But people wouldn't be as able to kill other people if they did not have access to the means of doing so.  For example, if every handgun owner had to show cause why he needed that firearm, and had to pass a background check, and was then restricted to keeping that firearm within his own residence
unless he first obtained a special transit permit from the local police, stating the purpose for the move and its destination, as we've been required to do in Canada, there'd be a lot less trouble, probably.

One of the main problems with guns is that they make it too easy for someone with a well-oiled semi-automatic within reach to think that he's got the power of life and death over the rest of us. And sometimes, if his head's not in just the right places, he can yield to the temptation to do something really stupid - something that can't be undone later. So the logical solution to that problem is to keep the guns away from those who can't be trusted with them, and probably didn't need them in the first place.

Following an incident the details of which I won't go into here, my several guns
including two well-oiled semi-automatics were confiscated by the RCMP. After they had done further investigation, they phoned me one evening several days later, and the gist of the message was that they weren't running a storage facility, and would I please come to headquarters and pick up my guns. I replied that upon reflection, I would prefer them to keep them, so that in future we would both know where they were, in case they got another call that I had threatened someone with a gun. We discussed that, and they agreed to make an itemized list of the guns and ammo they'd been holding, so I could sign off on it, which I did later. The point I'm taking too long to reach here is that it wasn't until after I'd given away that gun collection that I finally began to seriously work on my interpersonal relationships and learn the manly art of making compromises instead of threats. And that's been one of the best things that ever happened to me. I highly recommend it.