{"id":25945,"date":"2017-11-06T22:53:49","date_gmt":"2017-11-06T22:53:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=25945"},"modified":"2017-11-06T22:53:49","modified_gmt":"2017-11-06T22:53:49","slug":"guns-and-mental-health-both-played-a-part","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=25945","title":{"rendered":"Guns and mental health both played a part"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/silencio-pequena-familia-Sutherland-Springs_TINIMA20171106_0022_209.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-25946\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/silencio-pequena-familia-Sutherland-Springs_TINIMA20171106_0022_209-300x161.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"161\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/silencio-pequena-familia-Sutherland-Springs_TINIMA20171106_0022_209-300x161.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/silencio-pequena-familia-Sutherland-Springs_TINIMA20171106_0022_209-768x411.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/silencio-pequena-familia-Sutherland-Springs_TINIMA20171106_0022_209.jpg 1001w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Donald Trump believes the hideous massacre in Sutherland Springs, Texas, is a &#8220;mental health issue,&#8221; not a &#8220;guns issue.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been trying to process the president&#8217;s statement, which he delivered in Japan. I am coming up empty with that notion.<\/p>\n<p>You see, I happen to believe the lunatic shooter who killed 26 people at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs had no business packing the weapon he used to commit the carnage.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, &#8220;mental health&#8221; and &#8220;guns&#8221; aren&#8217;t mutually exclusive issues as they relate to this horrific episode in our nation&#8217;s history.<\/p>\n<p>The shooter was an Air Force veteran who received a bad conduct discharge after he assaulted his wife and young child. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has pointed out that the gunman applied for a concealed handgun permit, but was denied the permit because of his criminal record.<\/p>\n<p>And that begs the question: How did this sicko get his mitts on an assault rifle? And, yes, I expect to hear the argument that will come forth that bad guys will obtain guns no matter how many laws we have on the books.<\/p>\n<p>The debate on this hideous deed will commence fully in due course. The nation will grieve and a community will bury its victims. I don&#8217;t want to wait too long before this debate gets under way.<\/p>\n<p>The president can lead that debate by acknowledging what I believe is painfully obvious about what has transpired. It is that guns need to be part of the discussion topics, right alongside the issue of mental health care.<\/p>\n<p>These issues are not mutually exclusive.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Donald Trump believes the hideous massacre in Sutherland Springs, Texas, is a &#8220;mental health issue,&#8221; not a &#8220;guns issue.&#8221; I&#8217;ve been trying to process the president&#8217;s statement, which he delivered in Japan. I am coming up empty with that notion. You see, I happen to believe the lunatic shooter who killed 26 people at First &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=25945\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Guns and mental health both played a part<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1424,2037,3001,7403],"class_list":["post-25945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-gun-violence","tag-mental-health","tag-sutherland-springs-massacre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25945"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25947,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25945\/revisions\/25947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}