PoliceOne.com did an extensive survey on guns and gun violence, and as a part of that tried to ascertain what the causes are for the violence.

There’s no one answer, and this question was fairly divided with no overwhelming majority. But if you look at the reasons, a lot of it points back to our state of mind.

The degradation of our family and social structure, of kids growing up without much family so they look elsewhere for family… like to gang culture. Or the lack of parental filtering on things like TV, movies, music, and video games, to help a child put them into proper perspective.

We can even look at general social degradation, with how “news media” works to be another form of (morbid) entertainment, sensationalizing, driving and motivating copycats to achieve a higher body count so their names will be remembered forever.

Most shooters suffered from mental illness, but look at how we treat mental illness and those who suffer from it. And the prevalence of drugs like Xanax… it all goes together.

So really, much of it comes back to our state of mind.

Think about it.

We’ve had guns all along. We didn’t always have horrific shootings and violence. So guns are a common denominator in both situations, so we can factor it out. What are we left with? That’s where we should be looking.