Tiffany Bond  🦞 🇺🇸Verified account

Of course the answer here is the best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is to help the bad guy either not be a bad guy, or not let the bad guy get a gun. That's the conversation.

Solution set 1 - mental health. We have a real mental health issue in this country. We don't know how to handle it. Right now our solutions have been to mostly ignore it, self-medicate, and criminalize it. Those totally don't work. At all. Not even a bit.

Without figuring out how to improve this issue we have a whole lot of problems that aren't going away - from violence in society to those "lazy jerks" wanting food stamps who really have undiagnosed and untreated disabilities. Good news! We have a lot we can throw at this one.

We can... Expand healthcare access Remove barriers to treatment Add universal prek Increase IEP funding Examine how, why, and for how long we jail *insert literally at least dozens of other options here*

Solution set 2 - keeping the guns from the bad guys. We have some laws about this. We need to be examining them and figuring out where the cracks are and how to fill those cracks. We also need to have a long, hard conversation with ourselves about the people we cover for.

You've done it, haven't you? Covered for someone when you knew you shouldn't because you like them and/or need them. We don't need to become a society that taddles on everyone for everything, but we do *need* to stop covering for people we know will hurt others on purpose.