The recent tragedy of all those poor teachers, children, and their families hits those with mentally unstable family members pretty hard. I haven't talked about it lately because I don't want to keep inviting stress back into my living room after I've made such a concerted effort to kick it out. For some time I've been trying very hard to "accept the things I cannot change, change the things I can..." However, when stuff like this happens, the nagging feeling that this is a cop-out comes back to me.

I have to ask myself whether leaving my mentally ill relative to 'do the best she can' because I can't do much about her, or for her, is good enough. My daughter is not on any prescribed medications. She 'self medicates'. Her thought processes run amok at times and she has been known to hurt people.

On the very night of this tragic incident, we got a phone call from our daughter saying that she'd stabbed someone with a pocket knife. After hearing the whole story we felt it could be argued that she acted in self defense. Still, her inclination and quickness to use violence has always frightened and baffled us.

I hate to say it but this is one person who should NOT own a gun! Unfortunately, this is one person who would find a way to circumvent the law if she, for whatever reason, thought she needed one.

This tragedy has put gun control at the forefront of our minds and in my opinion, this is a HUGE waste of time! Mental health care is the issue! Sadly, it's always more appealing to tax-paying voters to ban something than to provide something. We will most likely get more laws, more legislation, tougher penalties and more jails for violators, providing states and counties with more jobs.

What we won't get is research grants, medication, treatment, or better infrastructure and methods of dealing with people who are living on the edge of their sanity.