Could a shooting rampage like the one at Sandy Hook happen where you live? Hell, yes! Newton, CT was one of the safest places in the United States to live.

Yet, when you scrape beneath the surface of most mass shootings, you find a young man who had experienced bullying and/or child abuse. In other cases, we find a domestic violence perpetrator who escalated his violence to victims outside his home.  What was going on behind the closed doors of the Lanza home?

Source: US Dept of Justice

I’m relatively confident that Nancy Lanza, who appears to have been the legal owner of an arsenal of six guns ~ three of them used in the mass shooting at Shady Hook, didn’t believe the U.S. Justice Department’s statistics that it was highly probable that her son Adam would use her own guns to kill her.

I won’t be surprised when the dust settles and the investigations are complete that we’ll learn that she was an abusive bitch whose son decided to kill her and commit mass murder to express his raging sense of impotence. Why the hell does anybody need an arsenal of six guns including a Bushmaster assault rifle? Again, the woman lived in one of the safest towns in the country. She had to be paranoid as hell.

I live in the Puget Sound region of Washington State which has been home to more than our fair share of mass murderers. Our officials pride themselves in their progressive attitudes. Yet, we don’t do much to protect women and children who experience domestic violence and child abuse. We let them fall through the proverbial cracks until they are on welfare because they are disabled by horrendous PTSD and depression.

The mental health and domestic violence safety nets where I live are a joke. I’m sure this is true all over the United States or so many people wouldn’t be visiting my blog. Someone was killed 10′ from my car in the parking lot of my prior apartment complex. Shots ring out where I live now ~ in an affluent suburb of Seattle ~ more often that I care to acknowledge. And, I lived with a high-ranking judge who had an arsenal of guns. He pointed a loaded gun at my own head and wasn’t kidding when he said he could kill me and “get away with it.”

So, this is personal to me. It is deeply personal. Yet, I’m wondering whether gun control is the solution. I think we need to start looking at why paranoid people like Nancy Lanza and the judge think they need an arsenal of guns. I think we need to do more to protect people who know they are at risk of gun violence. I think we need to spend less on cops and the military and more on healing the invisible wounds that have created a culture where violence is more valued than love.

If you feel you are currently at risk of gun violence, I urge you to confide in your physician. Medical providers are required to do domestic violence screening under ObamaCares. A physician can legally intervene where the cops can’t ~ until the bullets fly and there’s blood on the floor. Sadly, by the time the cops show up, it is often too late. It was too late yesterday for 28 people. Only one of the people shot by Adam Lanza yesterday during his shooting rampage at Sandy Hook survived.  Only one.  Twenty-eight people are dead.

Meanwhile, I do think it is time to take on the NRA. We the People voted out guys who condoned violence against women in November. We can put our heads together and come up with viable gun control legislation and out-vote the NRA. I think we need to focus on limiting manufacture of assault weapons rather than on the sale of guns. There’s no rational reason for people who aren’t police officers or in the military to possess an assault weapon.  Please note that I didn’t use the word “own.”

I also think we need to spend less on the military and our dysfunctional criminal “justice” system and more on violence prevention and mental health services. No mentally stable person points a loaded gun at another person with the intent to kill.