It's worked so well thus far...

Tough topic, and too much for Facebook I am sure. No trigger alerts, no apologies. No protection from scaring you, angering you, or making you feel bad. So woman up and deal with it. Life brings tough conversations and I am sick of this culture of pain avoidance and "safe" zones.

You can avoid unhappy topics, but at great cost. I could paint the picture of the slippery slope to fascism this kind of denial leads to, but another time. I want to talk about the most painful topic of all, the violent death of children.

There is great focus on the violent death of children, particularly school shootings. We are rightly outraged and revolted and there is a clear call to action.

But we are avoiding the true cultural breakdown that leads to these deaths. We are taking the easy road. The polarized road. We are hammering on the fortress of the Constituition and launching our own violent offensive against the Second Amendment. And we are slowly chipping away at the foundation. Those who are confused and afraid are successfully recruiting more and more desperate soldiers. If we keep it up, the walls of our Constitution will crumble bit by bit, and we will dissolve as a nation.

The Second Amendment is not a murderer. It is a precept of freedom built from history and experience. It is a shield against tyranny, enacted to ensure we remain free and self-directed citizens. If you think tyranny, oligarchy, and cruel, violent dictatorship can't happen here, well history has proven you wrong for thousands of years. Our Founders wisely learned from history in order to make sure we did not repeat it. But now we are faced with an ignorant and forgetful nation. We do not remember what came before.

The Constitution is not responsible for spilling the blood of our children. Until we accept that, more will die. The Second Amendment is a protection, not a weapon.

With our culture of freedom and self-reliance we have come to believe that strength of mind and body are the hallmarks of being an American. We are powerful, or were, and want to stand strong in our ability to adapt, overcome, survive, and win.

But we have a weakness, and it is fatal. We refuse to address it because we are afraid. We are afraid and tolerate the massacre of children because we don't want to admit we have an all too human fatal flaw. And we are apparently willing to pay the price.

The thing that shall not be named is the mental health of our citizens, our children and young adults who are alone and boiling with hate and desolation. They are abandoned by society even though their parents beg for help. The parents are the Oracles that no one believes. They often fear their children and plead for assistance to save the child they love. They scream the need to intervene and protect others, but our society shuns them. It is an unmentionable sin to be weak, mentally unstable, and demon-ridden in American society. We would rather let them explode in unspeakable horror as a way to release those demons, than craft a culture of support and treatment; a culture of intervention before it's too late.

A mother calls the police begging for help. Her son has threatened to kill her. He's angry, out of control. The police have few options. They say, "There's nothing we can do until he breaks the law." In other words, we can't help you until he kills you. Maybe 24 hours of observation at the hospital and a short conversation with a busy social worker occurs. But the son can act as if he isn't angry and at the breaking point. He's discharged.

A father calls a psychiatrist. "My son", as these killers are usually male, "My son won't take his medication. He's 25 and psychotic. What do I do?"

The psychiatrist can't help, "He's an adult. He can make his own decisions. I'm sorry."

When? When will face our fears? When will we stop attacking an idea and build a system that intervenes with the real cause? When will we decide enough is enough? Not yet apparently.

Instead we pretend that poorly thought out, unresearched words on paper mean something. We pretend additional gun restrictions will block madness and deadly intent. Legislators say, "A new process is what we need.", and they convince a grieving society that gun laws mean something. They try to prove a law on paper can stop a speeding bullet from someone who is willing to die in order to kill people. The killer knows he probably won't make it out alive and he wants it that way.

Until we grapple with the demons that drive psychosis and mental breakdowns.  Until we put together a nationwide system of intervention and treatment. Until we demonstrate our American ability to adapt, survive and overcome. Until we use our strength to say enough. Until we stop blaming an idea that protects us all and instead focus on the true cause, we are doomed, and children and adults will die, horribly. And we as a nation will die with them.

It used to be no one would say the word cancer out loud. Then HIV was the unforgivable sin, although, eventually, we opened our hearts. But through it all, modern American society has shunned those who suffer in their minds. Cancer patients are supported, loved, cared for from beginning to end, and beyond.

The expedited and furious research eventually applied to the public health crisis of HIV and AIDS found treatments to prolong life in record time.

In the mental health field, patients are still using medications developed 50 years ago, or more. And we really don't know exactly why some of them work, or which one to try first. It's a game of Russian roulette with potentially deadly side effects. The brain is slowly being discovered, at a snail's pace compared to other equally deadly diseases.

So go and hide behind your paper shields of law, and your "Gun Free Zone" signs. Increase the vulnerability of our most vulnerable populations. Increase the number of fish in the barrel.

Go on. Refuse to hire armed, professional security for our schools. Continue on fighting the phantom menace of our Constitutionally-protected personal freedoms and the tools that defend our nation.

Go on and deny the most devastating healthcare epidemic we've faced since the Spanish flu.

Go on. It's worked so well thus far.