Despite what we are hearing from reporters, talking heads, pundits and politicians, we don’t have a gun control problem, or even a problem with mental illness. Instead, we have a much deeper problem, a true cultural problem.

Fifty years ago we had guns and people who suffered from mental illness. We had guns in or at schools. We took guns to school because we were probably hunting on the way to school or hunting on the way home after school. We could buy guns and ammunition from the local hardware store, or order it from the Montgomery Ward or Sears & Roebuck catalog. There was one significant cultural difference, however. Whether you were mentally healthy or mentally ill, you were taught that it was wrong to point a gun at a person, even accidentally. And if you did, consequences were immediate. You lost your gun and you probably got your butt kicked. This immediate consequence didn’t just come from your parents, but from any adult around you. It was part of the culture that insisted on cultural norms such as politeness and individual responsibility.

Fifty years later we have a very different cultural norm. Thanks to movies, videos, games and the internet, we are slowly losing the societal politeness and individual accountability. Modern culture celebrates not only the pointing of weapons at others, but we are actually scored on the number of kills we have. Winners are the people who kill the most people. We can insult others with apparent impunity through the anonymity of the internet, without regard to truth or consequences. We glorify violence in virtually all the media sources we encounter, and are then shocked when it lands on our doorstep. While those with normal psyches may be able to deal with this virtual overload of violent stimulation, is it any wonder that those who suffer from mental illness are not able to process this stimulation without more than a small amount of confusion? Everyone wants to ‘belong’, everyone wants success. And success can now be defined as how many ‘kills’ we can score, how many people we can kill, humiliate or destroy.

Until we come to grips with the cultural reversal that glorifies this systemic violence, we will continue to repeat the Columbines, Virginia Techs, and Newport’s that seem to leave us asking why, without truly examining our culture.