Gun control advocates follow pretty much every mass shooting and start talking about how we need to restrict firearms. They say the problem is that we ordinary, law-abiding folks shouldn’t have access to evil “assault weapons” or other such things.

It’s clear they’re blaming the tool rather than the tool using it.

Yet it seems that’s not nearly as universal as the media may make it appear.

Despite President Joe Biden’s efforts to blame guns for mass shootings plaguing the country, most people are still of the thought that mental health problems are the reason, not guns.

In a Rasmussen Reports survey released between the last two mass shootings, when given a choice of six reasons, 42% chose “mental health.” Just 29% chose “access to firearms.”

Many recent shootings have been committed by those with mental problems.

The survey results are ultimately good news, but I also think it’s important that we understand that not all mental health issues are the same.

Someone suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder is a far cry from a paranoid schizophrenic in the midst of a psychotic break, for example.

That said, we do see a strong link between mass shooters and mental illness.

It would be wise to start trying to figure out exactly what causes someone to decide to shoot up a school, a church, a bank, or anywhere else. “Access to guns” isn’t the problem and never will be the problem.

And to be sure, the United States seems to have more incidents of mental illness than most other nations, according to studies. In fact, while just under 11 percent of the world population suffers from some kind of mental illness, roughly 20 percent of Americans do in any given year.

So those surveyed here were absolutely correct, the problem isn’t guns, but mental health.

Yet again, no one is doing the research. There are, so far as I’ve been able to find, any studies looking at the mental health of mass shooters. There’s been minimal effort to understand the way their minds worked and why they felt they should slaughter scores of innocent people.

We need to know that not just to save the lives of the innocent but also to save these sick souls, to keep them from staining their names and their families’ names with these atrocities.

Imagine a world where those who are so damaged can get treated and therefore never try to kill every single kid in a classroom. Instead, they go on to lead a good, productive life.

These people are damaged, but too many people see the solution as focusing on guns. All anyone should have to do is look at Nice, France to see what kind of carnage someone can do with a truck to recognize that the problem is not the gun, but the people.

If we can solve the people problem, we solve mass shootings as an issue.

The problem is that it’s not nearly as politically sexy for anti-gun Democrats to try and work out a solution that may take time to have an impact and much better for them to just take away our rights.