More and more, it seems the mainstream media is trying to sell us on this idea that gun control is not just justifiable, but popular. We see numerous reports of polls and we have countless stories about gun control rallies attended by tens of people that get spun like the crowd that watched Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech.

That includes reports in states like Tennessee.

However, I came across one earlier that points out something very different. You see, while Tennessee is no stranger to high-profile shootings, there is a tone shift underway in the state. It's just not what most in the media might have been hoping for.

After the deadly shooting at Antioch High School last month, many came forward to voice that such violence is not OK. 

“For years, I’ve done nothing but try to prevent such a thing from happening to me,” said an Antioch High School senior who said she had been to the Capitol twice before the shooting at her school to protest. “Once again, on Jan. 22, an unruly gunman entered another school with an illegal firearm. Not only was it just another school, it was my school, my safe place. To those in charge of keeping my safe space safe, I do not forgive you.”

But has the momentum after such tragedies changed over time? 

Instead of calls for red flag laws, a ban on assault weapons or even background checks, the main focus from advocates, students and politicians alike immediately following the Antioch High School shooting was school security and mental health. This is a major tone shift from seven years ago, when a man opened fire inside a Nashville Waffle House, killing four people. Even just two years ago, when a shooter killed three children and three adults at the Covenant School, the immediate response was swarms of people at the Capitol calling for gun laws. 

The specific details of each incident are relevant to the response they inspire — whether the shooting takes place in a school or not, and how many people are killed. But previously, a common thread was that they reliably led to calls for more aggressive restrictions on guns. Now, with a Republican supermajority in the state legislature seemingly uninterested in passing even the most minor of gun laws, that seems to have changed.

...

“We’re not allowed to talk about mental health because then that arms the GOP,” [Maryam] Abolfazli said. “But I’m done not talking about it because it’s not getting us anywhere anyways, we’re not getting the bills we want anyways.”

In all of these cases, as with most shootings around the country, the shooters’ mental health became a central concern. But overall, reactions around the city to the Antioch shooting have made one thing clear: the focus of how to stop gun violence is no longer on guns. 

I find the fact that talking about mental health in gun control circles is apparently taboo interesting. Mental health is an important aspect of a lot of people's lives. Tons of people struggle with it to some degree or another and even the most pessimistic estimate of what can come about regarding so-called gun deaths, should more resources be utilized for mental health, is a reduction in suicides, which accounts for around 60 percent of all of those deaths.

This should be a good thing and something we could find some kind of common ground on. If the issue with suicides was the fact that people took their own lives, then surely addressing the mental illness that leads to such a drastic action is something we should work toward.

And yet, that's something gun control advocates can't talk about because it might mean they'll work with gun rights Republicans?

Really?

I respect that Abolfazli at least recognizes that gun control isn't going to happen in Tennessee and is willing to work on what she can get. That includes mental health efforts.

In fact, most high-profile shootings are the result of some kind of mental health breakdown. Sane, rational, mentally well people don't suddenly decide to shoot up a high school or a Waffle House. Addressing mental health has the added benefit of stopping those, too.

I'm glad to see the tone shift in Tennessee toward something that's far more rational than the hysterics that lead to gun control. 

One state down, 49 more to go.