Hello everyone, I hope all is well with you. I’m back today after a week of work and writing. It has been suggested to me to do something different with my story and I’m noodling the idea, and until I decide on that, my latest story is on the backburner. But enough about that. Today, I want to talk about the mass shooting in Maine earlier this week.
In Lewiston Maine, a man walked into the bowling alley and opened fire, killing eight people, and injuring more. He then went to a local bar and opened fire. In total, eighteen people died and thirteen more were injured.
The man then committed suicide. What is going on in our country where mass shootings are the norm?
This has me concerned. Mass shootings are on the rise. There’s speculation about the cause, of course. The experts are pointing at mental illness, but only 10% of the shootings can be attributed to this.
So, mental health doesn’t appear to be a key factor, but many of these shooters have experienced domestic violence which is a key factor. The one thing no one talks about. So, maybe we shine the light on this type of violence and somehow put an end to it.
During my research for this post, I found an extremely interesting article. Click here to read it:
https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/mass-shootings
The interesting part of this article is that all these shooters didn’t expect to come out of the situation alive. They either planned on committing suicide or were killed in the act by law enforcement. The theory is that these shootings are really suicides. So, does society focus on suicide prevention? Good question. I believe the answer is a resounding yes, but there’s more pieces to the puzzle. Until we can come up with a formula that works, we need to take care of unsuspecting victims. We need to protect them.
How do we protect them? Well, the short answer is limiting access to assault weapons until we figure the prevention piece out. I know easier said than done.
There was another interesting point in the article. The experts had conducted interviews of people who were planning on committing a mass shooting but then they changed their minds. What was the one factor that made them change their mind?
Human Connection
That’s right. One person claimed he was going to commit the act, but at the last minute he changed his mind because his friend’s mother baked him a pie. Does anyone else see the correlation here? Disconnection is a factor in mass shootings and suicides. So, as a society we need to make sure our young people feel connected in their families and schools, and we need to make sure our struggling adults feel connected in their communities.
I believe that’s the key right there, but how do we do it? If you have any ideas, leave a comment! I’d love to hear from you! Thanks for reading my post. I appreciate you!