I like bamboo. My pictures of this ubiquitous, special kind of grass have little connection with the subject of my writing today. The attention of the world was drawn this week to yet another tragedy caused by a mentally ill person with a gun... 

Aaron Alexis killed himself and a dozen other people.  He was known to have been mentally ill. Aaron Alexis bought a gun from a gun shop.  It was easy for him to get the gun because the National Rifle Association makes certain that just about anybody who wants just about any kind of gun for any purpose can get it.  Actually, the majority of American citizens are in favor of reasonable gun control, but the National Rifle Association buys American legislators to ensure that no federal law gets passed that might inhibit the manufacture, sale, and use of guns.  

The leadership of the NRA and all but the dullest-witted legislators know and ignore statistics that should cause any reasonably intelligent and morally honest individual to rush to establish laws that would bring some control to the proliferation of guns in America.  All of them know that mental disorders are common in the United States and internationally. A report from the National Institute of Mental Health, a division of the National Institutes of Health, estimates that 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older -- about one in four adults -- suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year.  This translates to 57.7 million people in the United States.  Obviously, not all persons suffering from a mental disorder are a threat or a danger to others.  Persons suffering from mental illness need and deserve appropriate treatment.  Our bought-and-paid-for legislators know that health care systems in America are woefully underfunded, so many unwell people, including many suffering from mental illness, cannot afford to pay for health care; so their illnesses go untreated. 

Aaron Alexis was not an evil man.  He was sick.  Illness is a condition.  Illness isn’t evil. People are evil if they know exactly what should be done to make people healthier and the world safer for everybody but fail to do it.