shoot.

"if we had more guns, then this wouldn't have happened!"

"if we had more gun control and less guns on the street this wouldn't have happened!"

"if we had better mental health coverage this wouldn't have happened!"

"if we were a more loving people, this wouldn't have happened!"

"if we didn't allow our kids to play violent video games, this wouldn't have happened!"

"if there were two parents in that household raising that boy, this wouldn't have happened!"

and to take the cake, I just read this morning:

"if there were more men in that school.... this wouldn't have happened!"

Here's the thing... you.just.can't.prove.that.

There are thousands of people who have guns, and have never shot up a school/theater/etc.

There are thousands of people who don't have guns, and have never had a time where a gun would have been a useful form of defense.

There are thousands of people who have mental illnesses, who have never gone on a killing rampage.

And I could go on, and on....

I've been following along, and thinking and wondering and thinking some more about this whole Sandy Hook shooting [which is tragic and so sad and wrong].... but the thing I've come to realize is that no one  knows.

No.One.Knows.

This isn't like the common cold [remedy = drink plenty of fluids and take some DayQuil/NyQuil]

I think it might be a bit more like cancer [remedy = do something, even if it kills part of your body, 'cause we're just hoping this works!]

I'm probably a bit of downer, because I don't believe that there is a quick fix to any of this.  I really think though that pointing fingers at EVERYTHING, and ANYONE associated with this is not helpful [*maybe it was the layout of the school! if the architect had designed it better, then this wouldn't have happened!* [okay, no one has actually said that, but I wouldn't be surprised].

I read somewhere a thing that said something like, "Now is too LATE to be taking about gun control"... and while this may be true, I believe two things when it comes to talking about how to fix this problem right after it was announced... 1. People just lost their people.  Grief is hard enough to go through.  Why would you push them into anger right away?  Why can't you let them be sad for some time, and then move into anger?  and 2. What huge big messy problem have you really solved in a couple of hours?  You want to band-aid it, okay, go ahead... a band aid is temporary though.  You can't put a band aid over a broken bone and hope that it heals.  It just covers up a bigger problem.

I really think this is something that does need some thought, and research, and more thought, and more research, because I don't think this sort of stuff should happen!... but causation and correlation have to be considered.  And research has to be done so that we're talking about facts.

So, all that to say, I'm tired of getting angry at people who are heartless, and who think, "if we had just, blah, blah blah, this wouldn't have happened"....

You.Don't.Know.That.

-mrp-