# data[].attributes.body
This article is stating that non religious people are typically the people who create violence with guns, but who can say that when not even the research can prove itself?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The highest aim of civilization is to ensure the preservation of its people's lives. The continued development of America's mass shooting epidemic, reflected in the tragedies of Las Vegas and New Mexico, warrants an investigation of the causes of this evil. Ultimately, the root of this problem extends beyond the material alone. While guns enable mass shootings, they do not promote them. The initial cause of a mass shooting, the motivator, is the separation of a person from their sense of morality, allowing them to harm others without any regard for the consequences of their action. Ultimately, the substantial increase in mass shooting tragedies is caused by the corrosion of morality at the hands of a declining American culture. This decline is most evident in the developing trend of fading religious influence on society.

There is a strong correlation between the loss of religion in the United States and increased mass shootings. In the same time period that the number of people practicing religion has dropped within the United States, the number of severe mass shootings has increased significantly with each decade. However, this relationship extends beyond a correlation alone; causation is also sensible. Historically, while religious differences have often caused violence between cultures, religious homogeneity has created stability within a culture. Throughout European history, Christianity served as the foundation of society, justifying the authority of kings to rule and organizing the schedule of all of society around masses and religious holidays. Some would fear excessive application of religion to the modern society on the basis of its greatest past failures such as the Crusades, but I respond that human progress has largely mitigated the influence of religious extremism in the western hemisphere. With a developed understanding of human rights in the west, predominantly western religions such as Christianity have not waged war based on their theologic claim to power for centuries. In the context of the current world, society can access the benefits of religious homogeneity to societal stability more reliably than ever.

While many would like to dismiss this history in the face of new applications of logic and science to society, the weight of thousands of years cannot be dismissed like a grain of salt. We must not overlook the fact that, in shifting from religion, we enact tremendous change to the structure of our society. Centralized communities no longer meet and celebrate the same religious events every week. People no longer acknowledge a consistent set of moral truths. There are clear societal harms to these changes. Without a close, defined community, people are susceptible to anxiety and isolation. Without defined moral standards, people fall easily to evil, nihilistic values. These concerns are not speculative alone. When we look closely at the lives of mass shooters like Stephen Paddock and Nathaniel Jouett, we see individuals corrupted by feelings of isolation and anger that could have been remedied should our society have maintained the benefits of its religious structure. America's trending shift away from its religious values is a tremendous change, and in reflection of these recent events, it is one of reckless detriment.

While religious differences have often caused violence between cultures, religious homogeneity has created stability within a culture. "

- Charlie Kraemer

I would like to clarify that I do not see the loss of religion as the sole cause of mass shootings, and do not feel that a complete restoration of past religious values is the only step that should be taken to halt further tragedy. This is a nuanced issue exacerbated on a variety of fronts, including the excessive availability of semi-automatic weapons. However, I do feel that consistent moral standards, often established by religious tradition, serve to better the character of the majority of a society, and therefore play an important role in mitigating mass shootings.

If America seeks to address its gun violence problem, it must do so not only by reducing the capability of the corrupt to harm others, but also by combatting their motive to do so. In this process, we must be precautious and look to the ultimately altruistic values of most religions in order to dispel potential extremism. Should religion be properly implemented into society, we can now be met with the best of two worlds: the careful dedication to moral standards of traditional religion, and the stronger respect for all human dignity of the modern western world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Lack of religion contributes to societal violence

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The highest aim of civilization is to ensure the preservation of its people's lives. The continued development of America's mass shooting epidemic, reflected in the tragedies of Las Vegas and New Mexico, warrants an investigation of the causes of this evil. Ultimately, the root of this problem extends beyond the material alone.

# data[].attributes.body
This article is stating that Violent video games causes more fighting, bullying, and aggression. They said that out of 60% of middle school boys that play video games 39% end up getting into a fight or beating someone up.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Do Video Games Cause Violence? 9 Pros and Cons

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Proponents say playing violent video games causes more aggression. Opponents say the games are a convenient scapegoat for real-life violence.

# data[].attributes.body
Gun free zones reduce the rates of guns, any firearm is prohibited within 1,000 feet of a school, But for anyone with a gun licence it does not apply.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Analysis of the impact of gun-free zones on gun-related outcomes in the United States

# data[].attributes.body
About 60% of school shooters have a mental illness, according to kaiser health news. Donald Trump tweeted about the topic of the mentally ill having to do with most gun related accidents, people got offended and it back lashed.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
After the recent mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, Calif., in which 11 people were killed at a country music bar, President Donald Trump struck a familiar refrain: "It's a mental health problem," he said of the gunman, Ian David Long. "He was a very sick puppy."

Similarly, after a school shooting in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17 students and staff members in February, Trump tweeted that there were "so many signs that the shooter was mentally disturbed."

Public health and mental health experts counter that blaming the violence on the mentally ill is unfair and inaccurate, pointing instead to lax gun laws. "Most violence is not committed by people who are mentally ill," said Dr. Renée Binder, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California-San Francisco and a past president of the American Psychiatric Association. "Even if you took everyone who had any kind of mental illness and locked them up and gave them meds, it would hardly make a dent on the problem of violence."

Post-shooting debates typically are painted in black and white - but research suggests that the truth is less clear-cut.

The "stigma-busting advocates," who insist that mental illness has no connection to violence, and the "fearmongers," who assert that "the mentally ill are a dangerous menace and should be locked up," are both wrong, said Jeffrey Swanson, a professor of psychiatry at Duke University who has studied patterns of violence in major U.S. cities.

While it is true that mental illness plays only a small role in most forms of violence, including individual homicides, its role is larger in mass shootings.

About 60 percent of mass shooters have a history of serious mental disorders and two-thirds had never been seen by a mental health professional, said Grant Duwe, director of research and evaluation for the Minnesota Department of Corrections, who has spent years studying mass public shootings. While that suggests a greater need for treatment, the one-third who did get help "carried out an attack anyway," he said. "So, even getting mental health care is not the panacea people make it out to be."

For instance, James Holmes, who killed 12 people in an Aurora, Colo., theater in 2012, had been treated by a psychiatrist and spoken of homicidal thoughts. But he was not reported to authorities because he voiced no concrete plan.

Seung-Hui Cho, whose mental problems dated to childhood, repeatedly talked to campus counselors two years before he killed 32 people and wounded 17 others at Virginia Tech University in 2007. Diagnosed with a mood disorder after threatening to harm himself in 2005, he was hospitalized overnight and ordered by a judge to receive outpatient treatment. But, mysteriously, he was not assessed or treated.

Often, shooters' propensity for violence is easier to see in hindsight.

Six months before the shooting at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, police responded to a 911 call about yelling and banging coming from inside the house where Long, the alleged shooter, was living with his mother. They found an "irate" young man acting "irrationally" and called in a mental health crisis team. The social workers on that team evaluated and concluded there were no grounds to place him under a psychiatric hold.

It is unclear whether the officers were told of his history as a machine gunner in Afghanistan, which after the shooting led to speculation he might have had post-traumatic stress disorder. Only later did it emerge that Long had allegedly assaulted a track coach in high school.

California allows authorities to place people on a 72-hour hold to evaluate their mental states - a practice similar to that in many states. But the standard for such holds, known in California as a "5150," is quite high, said Dr. Garen Wintemute, an emergency physician who heads the University of California Firearm Violence Research Center at UC-Davis.

To be held, a person must pose a serious imminent threat to themselves or others or be so gravely disabled that they can't take care of themselves, he said. The law does not take substance abuse into account, Wintemute said.

"A 5150 involves taking a person into custody sometimes against their will," Wintemute said. "That's not something that's done lightly."

Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, the psychiatrist who founded the Treatment Advocacy Center 20 years ago, long has argued that society needs to be more forceful in getting care for the severely disturbed - and requiring it when necessary - to prevent suicide, mass shootings and other violence.

His goal is to get more state legislatures to pass bills like Kendra's Law in New York and Laura's Law in California that allow judges to order mentally ill people into outpatient treatment. His organization helped draft both those bills and has helped win passage of similar laws in at least 16 states. In California and some other states, however, the reach of the law is limited by whether counties decide to implement the approach.

Duwe takes no position on the idea of mandated treatment but said that doing so to prevent events that happen only a few times a year makes little sense. "Mass public shootings are more commonplace than they ought to be, but they are still too infrequent to design policies based on addressing such rare events," he said.

Gun laws that exclusively target people with mental health histories also make little sense, said Drs. James Knoll and George Annas, psychiatry professors at SUNY Upstate Medical Center, in a 2016 article in Psychiatry Online.

They "will be extremely low yield, ineffective, and wasteful of scarce resources," they wrote.

Wintemute argued that other strategic interventions may work better. He advocates fixing problems in the nationwide system of background checks, which requires firearm dealers to verify with the FBI that a purchaser isn't a felon, fugitive, domestic abuser or dangerously mentally ill.

He said flaws in the law include the fact that private sales, including those at gun shows, are exempt; only federal, but not state, agencies are required to submit data to the background-check database; and thousands of cases of violence by military service members - including that of a shooter who killed 26 people in a Texas church in 2017 - are not reported.

Wintemute also helped draft a California law that took effect in 2016 that allows family members or law enforcement officials to seek a temporary restraining order barring a potentially violent person from purchasing guns and removing any already in their possession.

These so-called gun violence restraining orders don't involve a mental health assessment, Wintemute said, but are designed to let family members temporarily get guns away from a relative at risk of doing harm, including suicides. The order can last up to three weeks and can be extended for up to a year after a hearing, in which the gun owner can ask a judge to return the weapon.

In California, 190 orders were issued through the end of last year, Wintemute said, results he described as disappointing. Numbers for this year have not yet been compiled, but Wintemute said they are growing. So far, 13 states have passed similar laws, beginning with Connecticut in 1999. Eight, including Florida, approved them in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting, and Florida has already issued 450 such orders, Wintemute said.

Physicians can play a key role by asking patients and family members if they own guns and encouraging the family to seek a gun order if they're worried, Wintemute added.

"If physicians are willing to see this as 'If you see something, say something,' and bring it to families' attention, we could decrease rates of suicide and possibly mass shootings," he said.
This story was produced by KHN, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Gun Control Vs. Mental Health Care: Debate After Mass Shootings Obscures Murky Reality

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
More than half of mass shooters have serious mental health disorders, experts say, but the vast majority of mentally ill people are not violent. Some clinicians suggest strategic interventions, including closing loopholes in background checks to buy firearms and allowing family members to confiscate guns under temporary court orders for relatives at risk of doing harm.

# data[].attributes.body
In this article, it is stating that courts had the idea to get rid of the 2nd amendment ( right to bare arms) to get rid of guns, because without that amendment there is no right to have guns.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In an Op-Ed essay on Tuesday, the former Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens called for the repeal of the Second Amendment. Readers debated it on social media and in the comments section of the piece. Below is a sample of some representative viewpoints, edited lightly for clarity. For more, read the essay and comments here.
Retired Justice Stevens confirms the need for conservative voices on the Supreme Court. He would change the second most important amendment based solely on his emotional lack of logic, not on history. The Second Amendment was created to guarantee the eternal freedom of the citizenry from an overreaching federal government. The same argument applies today, as history proves that one of the first steps for authoritarian governments is to remove firearms from their future serfs. Then comes free speech and religion. The founding fathers were much more wise than Stevens. - Jon Galt, Tex.

Frankly, in the wake of District of Columbia v. Heller, I don't see how any meaningful gun control could be enacted without a repeal of the Second Amendment. Heller elevated the right to own a gun to such a high level, it is right up there with freedom of speech and the right to due process. Even the most mild, seemingly sensible gun control measures can now be challenged on constitutional grounds, with a high probability of success. Heller created such an impregnable shield around the Second Amendment that tearing it out root and branch seems like the only way. - Dennis Fritz

Right-wing talking points aside, the Second Amendment was never written to guarantee the eternal freedom of the citizenry from an overreaching federal government. It was written - long before we had a standing army - to guarantee a well-regulated militia to defend the country from being attacked. It is a relic we tolerate to maintain consensus and something resembling unity in this country. - Eric Beyer, New York

Up to now I have been a Second Amendment supporter, but I have never been against controls on large-capacity magazines, Teflon-coated bullets, background checks, etc. I could accept repeal of the amendment, but I would need to know precisely what was replacing it. All gun owners would need to know that.
- Williamigriffith, South Carolina

Everyone is concerned about rights, but few chime in about responsibility. The wording of the Second Amendment is about being ready to fight for your country, with no standing army extant. You have an army now. "Militia" readiness is redundant. On another point, please remember this was an amendment. It can be modified or even repealed entirely. The issue of personal safety is a red herring. Japan has a much lower rate of gun violence. Canada, Britain, Australia and other countries are doing just fine without all the guns and some of the nuts who advocate for them. What makes America so "exceptional" that the rules of law and human nature do not apply to them? - mdroy100, Ontario

There's no need to repeal the Second Amendment, and pushing for it seems unnecessarily divisive. Courts have consistently ruled that regulating firearms does not violate it, and we've had common-sense gun regulation in the past. The last assault-weapons ban survived constitutional challenges, and there's no reason a new one wouldn't. Combine such a ban with strict background checks, training and licensing, and you can mitigate the number of mass shootings. Only the extremists want to ban all guns; clearly, there are ways to regulate weapons without taking away people's rights. Further, the process to repeal a constitutional amendment takes many years, which makes this argument even weaker.- Marc McClenahan, Arizona

I have no problem repealing the Second Amendment and believe it is a great position from which to begin. Often liberal politics start negotiations from a position of compromise, forcing us to move right when the other side screams "compromise!" If we start from a position that moves us to a fair compromise, I say go for it: Repeal the Second! - Sara McElroy, New York

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Opinion | 'Only the Extremists Want to Ban All Guns'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In an Op-Ed essay on Tuesday, the former Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens called for the repeal of the Second Amendment. Readers debated it on social media and in the comments section of the piece. Below is a sample of some representative viewpoints, edited lightly for clarity.

# data[].attributes.body
According to 'The Guardian' article, every American gun owner owns more than 17 or up to 17 guns. And their research says that it's usually AR-15's because they cheaper and easier to get a hold of. A 34 year old that owned more than 30 guns ended up being a suspect in a school shooting not to long after buying an AR-15.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Meet America's gun super-owners - with an average of 17 firearms each

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Some are collectors with elaborately curated selections of historical firearms, while others are 'just accumulators'. They say it is surprisingly easy to get to 17

# data[].attributes.body
Honestly, my opinion on all of this is if you have the ability to stop all of this, do it by raising gun prices and taxes for those who just got a licence or for their first couple of guns make it more expensive, and keep track of the people who bought the guns and raise the sentence of holding a gun without licence, by doing that people will think twice about their actions, possibly. But it's better than what there saying because they want to get rid of the 2nd amendment and talk about what they should do, the answer is in front of you, Taxes and higher penalties.