Meta(
    title: "Mental health and guns",
    summary: Some("Some reflection on the second amendment and mass shootings"),
    published: None,
    tags: [
        "guns",
        "healthcare",
        "lewiston",
        "family",
    ],
)
---
My son is a sophomore at Bowdoin College in Maine. Bowdoin is a fairly small but very old liberal arts school situated in the town of Brunswick, part of the Portland metropolitan area. It's a quiet area most of the time. Quiet has taken on a completely different meaning these past two days, however.

About a half hour to the North from my son's dorm is the town of Lewiston, the site of the horrific shooting that took place this past Wednesday evening which has claimed 18 lives so far and spawned a massive manhunt, along with shelted in place orders for many of the surrounding communities. The college has cancelled classes the past two days and the students are all being cautioned to stay in their dorms as much as possible. Note that while Lewiston is around a half hours travel to the North, the shooter, Robert Card, apparently abandoned his vehicle in the town of Lisbon, which is South of the site of the shooting. As a dad, it's horrifying to think that the suspect was definitely traveling nearly straight towards my son's location the last place he was known to be. My son is smart and I trust him to play things cautious. Also, there's not much chance that Robert Card is still both alive and in the area considering the time that has passed. None of that makes me feel better right now. I doubt I'll sleep much until I know he's been found, or until my kid is safely back home with us.

## What caused this?
One thing that always happens right after a tragedy like this is that people on one side of the debate around gun control use it as an opportunity to push their cause to the front. I've wanted to punch a number of people for doing this these past couple days. It's not that I disagree with them, it's that they need to shut the fuck up until people either know their loved ones are safe or they have had a chance to grieve, for one thing. The other thing I want these particular assholes to consider is that it's not as simple as they want it to be.

### Mass shootings are not a recent thing
The first time in my life that I remember hearing about mass shootings was Columbine. Probably like a lot of other people, I've been living under the delusion for a large chunk of my life that this is a relatively recent phenomenon. A few months back I actually went looking for data that would support this in order to shut up someone who was preaching gun control. The thing is, my family have always been very much in favor of the second amendment. I went hunting with my dad and my older brother for the first time when I was 14. My grandfather ran a sportsman's supply business and helped establish a hunting and fishing resort in a rural part of Canada. Both of my brothers own multiple firearms. Even my mother owns a handgun. And while I don't own any guns, that was always due not to ethical misgivings but being broke and not very interested. No, I had no problem with private gun ownership and I've always read the second amendment as a very simple prohibition against the government curtailing weapons ownership in any form.

Imagine my surprise when my research immediately showed that mass shootings have been a problem in the US almost from day one. It's bad. If you look at the history and timeline there are some truly horrific incidents. It made me question my beliefs in a big way.