After the Frazier Miller shooting spree against Jewish people in Kansas two weeks ago, which killed three people, I was surprised at how little coverage it had compared to past shooting tragedies.

It surprised me since it I thought it was a good opportunity for conservatives to present their argument on lowering gun violence, one that relies more on addressing the social and behavioral issues at the root, so they do more instead of blocking any legislation liberals propose to reduce it.

In the past, the main conservative argument has been blaming mental illness for these tragedies, but this is entirely wrong. The National Rifle Association has called for a national database for the mentally ill, characterizing violent criminals as “lunatics” or “insane,” and got instant criticism for it.

This only reinforces the negative stigma around the mentally ill, especially as they only commit a small percentage of crimes. It builds on peoples’ fears and makes them see the mentally ill as “evil,” as opposed to citizens suffering from afflictions out of their control.

In my sophomore year, I reported on two gun violence panels after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School and all the professionals who spoke agreed there’s no significant connection between mental illness and shootings.

Conservatives have a bad reputation of being obstructionist or ineffective on gun violence, and a great way to finally overcome this is focusing on how behavior is the biggest root cause. It’s very easy to blame guns for these tragedies, but while they play a part, people’s behavior is still the biggest factor.

Measures to solve this should include educating citizens on warning signs and making it easy to quickly report them.Behavioral counseling should be more freely available, especially within schools, so people can easily find help and avoid violently acting out. These are just two examples for much better long-term solutions than gun control, since they keep people from acting violently altogether, as opposed to just acting out violently with a gun.

Basic background checks for people with records of violence and misconduct, and stopping people from buying guns and ammunition anonymously online, are some gun control measures important to enforce. But greater ones like limiting assault weapons and ammo clips should have plenty of hard evidence before they’re considered, as they are just trimming the edges of the issue.

The NRA’s main argument against virtually all gun control measures is that only good guys with guns can stop bad guys with guns. To an extent, I actually agree with them here. However, if this argument is true, there are two important notes.

The first is that the solution to gun violence isn’t to make guns as available as possible and hope more good guys than bad guys get them, since the risk of future shootings gets far too high.

The second note is that this argument means pro-gun groups like the NRA need to address the big issue: people and their behavior. This means a larger push for social outreach measures to the public and getting troubled individuals the help they need before they fall to a point of no return.

Frazier Miller had a long history of hating and fighting against Jews. While there likely wasn’t any changing his beliefs, there were plenty of chances to at least try and change his behavior before it reached the point of three citizens dying. Solving the issue with people like this isn’t taking away every gun around them, but instead, surrounding them with people that can give the help they need.

Max Antonucci is a junior newspaper and online journalism major. His column appears weekly. You can find him on Twitter @DigitalMaxToday or email him at meantonu@syr.edu.

Published on April 21, 2014 at 1:00 am