Do we need to ban guns to save our children?

My heart cries for the families who have lost their precious children in the recent?mass Texas school shooting. Also for the families of the two teachers who lost their lives protecting the children in their care.

I am left with two main questions (and many more...)

1. Is this a gun problem?

Or

2. Is this a mental health issue?

I have read numerous news reports and of course they are always biased towards holding the government accountable for passing new more stringent gun laws to prevent this from happening again. (Click here to read a really informative report on gun laws in the USA)

I agree that something has to be done at a higher level. With its long-standing constitutional right to bear arms, reducing access and the number of guns in the USA has always been a contentious issue. So yes...this is a higher level administrative problem but is?this REALLY about guns?

Or is this about?ACE scores? ACE stands for?Adverse Childhood Experiences?and a large scale?research study?way back in 1995 identified that toxic stress can alter how our DNA functions, and how that can be passed on from generation to generation. The study was one of the largest investigations of childhood abuse and neglect and household challenges and the impact on adult health and wellbeing. It was found after researching 17000 people that trauma may put children at risk for violence and other mental health problems in later life.

In the recent newspaper reports I have read about the mass shooting, there seems to be a consistent thread of a story of toxic stress in the Texas shooters life.

• Poverty
• Bullying
• Neglect
• Isolation
• Broken family

So if we go back to the research, we can deduce (if the news reports are correct in their assumptions) that Salvador when faced with these experiences throughout childhood became a high risk candidate for what transpired and resulted in the loss of life of so many innocent children and their teachers.

No doubt many mental health professionals will be dissecting his life properly in time to come. You see as a clinical child psychologist I know and have seen on brain scans that toxic stress can literally change the physiological structure of a child’s brain because bad hormones have the ability to change the entire makeup of a child’s body.

Is this me making excuses for his behaviour?

Absolutely not!

His choices were far from acceptable.

But…

I want to know how he become so unhinged and nobody was able to identify the red flags? I also want to know why the media is not talking about changing policies to tackle high risk children like Salvador in early childhood?

It is my belief that if policies changed to include more substantial budgets for mandatory family resilience programmes…especially for those families identified as high risk for ACE scores would we be having this conversation?

You see I am a believer that the cycle of inter generational trauma (trauma passed from generation to generation) can be broken but this can only be done with early intervention. This is why as an advocate for Childrens mental wellbeing I have decided to be part of the solution.

Since 2009 I have been training professionals to use my play based coaching? system to target mental, physical, emotional, social and spiritual wellbeing in children under the age of 12. Why?

My research has allowed me to put together an evidence informed approach that rewires the vulnerable brain and counteracts the impact of toxic stress before children become teens. When they get to the teenage years play based coaching? has already given vulnerable children a toolkit to deal with life positively and make good choices.

I think the other issue at hand is also about young people taking an active role in help-seeking, particularly as they get older. However there are barriers to help seeking because mental health issues still carry stigma. Traditional psychotherapy and interventions have often left me as a service user feeling deflated and unsupported (another story for another day) so I can understand why so many vulnerable people fail to seek and fail to find suitable support. So we need to ascertain what the shooter, Salvador’s own views on his barriers to seeking and accessing help for his mental health problems were.

We can undoubtedly deduce that he was filled with anger, he was lonely, he felt rejected and unsupported. Unfortunately because of this he chose to buy an assault rifle and inflict harm instead of asking for help?

Why?

So as you can see I have many more questions and this issue of ACE scores and preventable mental and physical illness is my life's work!

But today... my my heart goes out to the children and parents and teachers and the wider community of this recent tragedy. The impact this unspeakable trauma will have on their lives now and in years to come can be predicted and I do pray they get the support and help they need to process the events so that the ripple effect doesn't extend into future physical and mental health issues.

Did you know that the husband of one of the teachers killed in this school shooting collapsed and died while he was preparing for his wife's funeral? Joe Garcia literally died of a broken heart after his wife of 24 years Irma was gunned down. And so the ripple effects begin.

I believe this is not about gun policies although they have a role to play. This is about adverse childhood experiences. This is about us as secret parents galvanising childrens brains so that they can make good choices in later life.

Forever the 18 year old Salvador Ramos will be known as a murderer who attacked innocent children in their school. He will forever be called evil, a murderer and mentally ill despite losing his life alongside those he harmed.

Will this change gun laws?

Maybe?

I would hope this would create the wake up call where it needs to be? That ALL of us are responsible for rebranding childhood. This is about us as a global village raising children to be good functioning citizens of our world.

This starts with you and me.

My prayers go out to all impacted by this tragedy.