What is it about America that causes us to have so many mass shootings? What makes us different? Why don’t other countries have this problem?

“Clearly, it’s a mental health issue,” claim the Republicans, while slashing the budget for mental health and taking away the mental health background check requirements for gun purchases.

“Other countries have mental health issues,” we reply, “yet they don’t have this problem.”

“Look! A squirrel!” they reply while stuffing wads of money into their pockets from the NRA.

The fact is that while we have 4.4% of the world’s population, we own 42% of the world’s guns. And those guns aren’t evenly spread out among Americans. Only about 23% of all Americans own guns, but 3% of the population owns 50% of the guns.  And I’d be willing to bet that 99% of all the mass shootings come from that 3%.

So we Americans are allowing ourselves to be the deadliest advanced country in the world for the sake of 3% of the population that probably has mental problems we are not addressing. (For the record, the only countries with more gun violence per capita are poorer, less-developed places: Uruguay, Panama, Brazil, Columbia, Jamaica, Guatamala, Swaziland, El Salvador, Venezuela, and Honduras.)

But the Republican solution to gun violence here in America?  “Let’s do nothing! Maybe that will work.”