Another mass shooting, gun control, population, and mental illness.

I should note I finished writing this last night...before the Connecticutt school shooting. 27 dead and counting. The last paragraph has been edited

Another mass shooting in America. Another mass (social) media fire storm. Another wave of hearing from pundits on both sides of the aisle saying why guns are part of the problem, or why guns are not part of the problem. This issue usually separates people into two divisions: pro gun people, and pro gun control people.  I fall into the latter portion, but I view it a bit differently than most.

It is almost 2013. There are 313 million people living in the United States.  Most over 18 years old can purchase a gun legally.  Some can purchase a gun illegally. It is not unreasonably hard to get a gun into your hands.

Some info to consider (source: National Alliance On Mental Illness)

313 million Americans

*One in four adults—approximately 57.7 million Americans—experience a mental health disorder in a given year. One in 17 lives with a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia, major depression or bipolar disorder1 and about one in 10 children live
with a serious mental or emotional disorder.

*About 2.4 million Americans, or 1.1 percent of the adult population,lives with schizophrenia.

• Bipolar disorder affects 5.7 million American adults, approximately2.6 percent of the adult population per year.1

• Major depressive disorder affects 6.7 percent of adults, or about14.8 million American adults. According to the 2004 World Health Report, this is the leading cause of disability in the United States
and Canada in ages between 15-44.3

In America, we are an expanding population, and I can't help but feel that only puts more and more people at risk to mentally ill people who can buy a gun (because they're not in the system as "mentally ill" people, which is what the NICS addresses in the post 2007 Virginia Tech massacre world).

• One-half of all lifetime cases of mental illness begin by age 14,
three-quarters by age 24.6 Despite effective treatments, there
are long delays—sometimes decades—between the first onset of
symptoms and when people seek and receive treatment

It seems obvious now that Jovan Belcher needed some help (and he was apparently trying to be helped according to the chiefs).  Mentally sound people don't usually (and I say "usually" because I don't agree with the "crime of passion" precedent, but I know it exists) snap and kill someone unless their life, or a loved one's life is in danger, but that's a different set of circumstances involving survival. Jovan Belcher's survival was not at stake. But there are people out there who do snap, and I think they have that *breaking* point.  That's their sign of the mental illness that they had been hiding from the general public for so long. 

Sometimes we have plenty of warning signs, like the 2007 Virginia Tech  massacre.  Other times there is very little warning, just body bags.

EDIT: Mental illness destroys the self and others.  A gun makes destruction very simple. We are a society, seemingly hell bent on creating conditions that drive people insane.  We spend countless hours debating steroids in sports, a politician's affair, legalizing marijuana and number of other issues, yet this morning, someone woke up and decided to kill 27 people (and counting).   Let's address that first, above all else, and figure out why its happening more and more often.