You raise some really good points, and I appreciate the thought behind your response.

I wanted to kind of try to maybe unpack the point you made as best as I can:

> Do you not find it easier to simply take action with mental healthcare for the weeks, months, and years prior to the shooting?

We have zero mental health infrastructure in the United States, and it would take decades to build a working system (there's not even the political will to try at the moment).

In the case of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting where 17 people died, the police were well aware that the suspect was a threat, they had received multiple tips that he was going to shoot up the school, and they knew he had guns. But there isn't framework in the United States to do anything about it because we have such strong free-speech and civil liberties protections. It's also perfectly legal for someone who hasn't been convicted of anything or put on an emergency mental health hold to own a semi-automatic rifle. As a result, the guy who told everyone exactly what he was about to do took his gun, walked into his high school, and murdered almost 20 people.

People are looking for pragmatic solutions to prevent these types of mass shootings.

1. We could enable the police to arrest or detain people who haven't committed a crime, but that would conflict with constitutional free-speech protections, and would set a stronger precedent for police arresting people for things they haven't actually done yet (slippery slope).

2. We could build an entire mental health system from scratch (decades of work assuming at some point in the next ten years this would be a priority for the president and congress).

3. We could increase restrictions on certain types of guns to prevent them from falling into the hands of a disturbed 19 year-old (incredibly easy to do, there's widespread popular support, and all Congress would have to do is pass a single bill). The only people negatively impacted would be a minority of people who would be slightly inconvenienced, but still be able to pursue their hobby. The majority of people would gain the ability to send their kids to school without wondering if they're going to get murdered.

Only one of these options (#3) seems to be within the realm of actually being achievable. We're just not going to build a mental health system from scratch anytime soon, and people aren't thrilled about giving the police more ability to arrest people who haven't actually committed a crime. We're left with more weapons restrictions as the only pragmatic solution (what Europe, Australia, Canada, Mexico, etc. have done).

Only a minority of Americans own guns, and there's consistent support among the majority of voters for increased restrictions on firearms.

I enjoy shooting guns myself as a hobby, and I live in California which has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country. The laws really aren't such a big deal. It just means an assault rifle has a 10-round mag restriction, and it's a little slower to change mags since they require a few additional steps to swap out. I don't find that to be a particularly big deal, especially since it helps my friends, family, and neighbors not have to worry about the safety of their children. I still get to pursue my hobby, and there's no way I need more than 10 rounds for home defense. Even if they outright banned assault rifles, I could have fun for the rest of my life target shooting with bolt-action rifles.

At the end of the day, it's just a hobby.