Letter: Lawmakers are the ones with the real gun problem

But now it seems that thoughts and prayers are no longer part of their playbook because people are seeing right through that baloney and because lawmakers have a more reliable excuse … mental health. With America averaging one mass shooting weekly since the beginning of this year, we are surely going to break our record for the most mass shootings in a single year. So mental health becomes the boogeyman that these recalcitrant lawmakers fall back on.

A deeper look at statistics from the FBI indicates that mental health is not a major factor in mass shootings. One can easily see that the vast majority of these perpetrators have been brainwashed by the likes of Fox News and similar broadcast stations as well as radical right-wing podcasts that spew hatred and anger toward minorities such as Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and minority religious groups such as Jews, Muslims, Sikhs. Falling deeper into the “rabbit hole” of radical right wing propaganda, they become angry and decide to do something about it for fear that their “white privilege” will be replaced by these minorities.

The fact is that mental health is a factor in this debate. But it is the mental health of these hard-headed, uncompromising, recalcitrant lawmakers who refuse any sort of gun control legislation and find the easy way out by hiding behind the Second Amendment and mental health as their excuse.

As lawmakers, compromise is part of governing and showing leadership is finding solutions to problems affecting everyday citizens. To refuse to even search for mutual agreement or middle ground is not governing or law making, but nothing more that infantile behavior, much like a child having a tantrum. When adults exhibit such behavior, it is time to question their mental health and get them into counseling as soon as possible, not only for the sake of their mental health but for the sake of the country as well.

Gerald Scott

Buffalo