CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Monday’s shooting at the Paramus Mall in New Jersey is just the latest in a series of high profile violent incidents. It has some people wondering if this is the nation’s “new normal.”
Every time we turn on our TV it seems there is more breaking news coverage of a high profile shooting. “Since the 1980s we have seen crimes exactly like this. Angry, psychotic, depressed young men, mentally ill, haven’t been treated, with a triggering event that causes them to emerge into a rage and want to go out in a blaze of glory,” says criminal psychologist Dr. Alan Lipman.
Dr. Lipman says often at the peak of that rage those people have easy access to the deadliest weapons. Collectively it has put America on edge. “We’re jumpy because the impression has been created by interest groups that any mentally ill person might jump out around a corner and harm someone. That is false.”
Why can’t gun violence be solved politically in America? Darrel West, political analyst with Brookings Institution says “Even Democrats don’t want to do this. You have Democrats who are representing rural areas where the right to have a gun is sanctimon and nobody wants to put any limits on that.”
