My love affair with Texas started in 1992, when I was unhappily moved from my birthplace of Chicago, Illinois at fourteen years of age, after quite a few years of family turmoil and chaos that is not the point of this article, to El Paso, Texas.

What is the point of this article is that that all too brief period was one of the first in my life where I felt accepted by my peers and, removed from the cesspool that was and is the Chicago public school system, I even got great grades minus art, which for anyone that knew me might seem odd, but I had issues showing others my self created visual art out of nerves and just being a kid.

I loved that period of my life, even though it did not last very long as it gave me a lot of confidence and self-belief that even though I am far from perfect in those areas now, I was severely lacking in them prior to living in El Paso.

So I felt sorrow when I saw the news about the mass shooting in a Wal-Mart there early this August, as the town was to me what was best about America as I recall being one of a smaller amount of white students at the high school and there was never any trouble, never any racial divides, just people getting on with their lives.

However, due to a small percentage of our population who cannot deal with life’s pressures and problems without a violent reaction, there are quite a few people who passed this month prematurely in horrendous crime scenes, rather than getting on with those lives as I once saw the citizens of the city do with great aplomb.

Now, there is a problem, you can blame it on guns, but those, regardless of a debate that should be taken up on background checks for certain arms, those are just the tools used, not the entire cause, that lies in the life and mind of the shooter.

I think the mental health issue is the largest hurdle to be addressed, as well as identifying and reaching out to those that may feel out of touch or disenfranchised with the people and the society around them, making sure that we are not leaving anyone behind nor tying their hands when it comes to good and up kept mental health.

Mental health and getting help for psychological issues needs to no longer be stigmatized so people from all walks of life can get help when they need it, before the trend strikes again and more people are killed or injured.

Mass shootings have been occurring with alarming rapidness of frequency for quite awhile and while both political parties can debate till the end of the Earth on who is to blame, who inspired who, and what party has the best issues to point fingers at or the superior salve for the burn, it is almost irrefutable fact that anyone killing that many people and then usually dying themselves is in a poor mental state.

The faster we can identify and get to the roots of those issues, the faster we will probably save hundreds of lives.