Here's my own anecdotal story; note that it's third hand, I wasn't directly involved, so people should take it as such. Around the corner from my house one ear

Here's my own anecdotal story; note that it's third hand, I wasn't directly involved, so people should take it as such. Around the corner from my house one early morning (around 3am?) erupted a 4-alarm fire at a neighbor's home. Several fire trucks, etc later, the fire fighters tried to enter the structure when they were shot at by someone inside. They retreated and the police (SWAT) were called. They entered the home with the fire fighters; the person inside attempted to fire again, and was shot and killed. The fire was put out, and while I never learned all the details in the aftermath, I learned enough to know something very terrible had happened. The person that SWAT had shot and killed was the adult son of the family who lived at the home. The parents had kept numerous firearms in the house, and the son had only been living there for a few months before this incident occurred. Prior to that, he'd be virtually homeless, struggling with bipolarism and schizophrenic issues. These mental health issues were known to the parents and family; they had originally kicked him out of the home years prior, but let him back in trying to get him better help or something like that. But they kept their weapons in the house; at one point, IIRC, they also bought him his own weapon for his birthday. Apparently there was some kind of an argument, based on what immediate neighbors had heard earlier in the night, but they thought things had calmed down. Unfortunately for the family, they had only started. Sometime during the night, for reasons unknown, their son decided to take one of the family's or his own weapon, shot the mother and father, then his sister, and the family dog, then set fire to the house and waited in his bedroom. The entire family - including the dog - dead inside a few hours. It's not known (that I really know of) if the son's mental health issues played any role in the shooting deaths of his family, but they certainly can't be discounted. It's not certain that had there not been guns in the home, if the results would be different, but I tend to think fewer deaths would have occurred. Note - I'm liberal in my views and political leanings, I also support gun rights as well. But I think that a discussion on how to temper these rights with keeping such weapons out of the hands of potentially dangerous people needs to be had. I don't know what a good solution would be in such cases. There are many issues intertwined, that we have let become a morass in our society, which may make the issue nearly impossible to untangle. It's the issues and problems we have surrounding mental health, and healthcare/coverage in general, the stigmas and such. It's issues surrounding guns, our culture of violence, the rights of individuals, etc. It's our society's tendency to seek to place blame elsewhere, and not take responsibility for our problems (we claim "self-sufficiency!" as "being American" - but forgetting the other side of that coin is also personal responsibility). It's our weird obsession with violence; how as a culture we've deemed it more fit for people to consume as media and knowledge - almost elevating it as something aspirational, especially when it comes to the military. Simultaneously, we've deemed sexual knowledge and media to be something shameful - at least on the one hand; yet on the very other, such knowledge and media is blatantly used to sell products - so there's this mixed message "violence ok, sex is bad, but if you want to buy something - here's sex to sell it". Our media, our politicians, and increasingly each of us - have fostered and promote an "us vs them" dichotomy amongst the population. All of these things - and many more - are all tangled up. They are all problems we need to solve, but like a box of Christmas lights or a bowl of spaghetti, they are hopelessly tangled up, and one can't be sorted and fixed without causing problems with others, or requiring others to be fixed before or simultaneously. All the while, our attention is being demanded here, there, and elsewhere, and we never actually get any of it solved. This of course benefits a few at the expense of the masses, but the masses have either tuned out, been satiated with some pablum (GoT, anyone?), or both - while a smaller minority "fights" among each other for control, both with agendas they believe will fix everything, when the fact is, they won't fix anything - and likely will make it worse. Or at least, that's what they say about the other side. Meanwhile - the benefactors in all of this - they just smirk, laugh, smile, prod - and continue on, not caring about the chaos they help to create, promote, and endure. It's a very unstable situation here in America. Eventually, something will give, and when it does, what happens next won't be pretty at all.