The recent mass killing in Maine will no doubt lead to a loud discussion about gun control. But guns led to more than 200 mass shootings in 2022 — about ten per week — more than one per day. Yet, despite gun violence researchers saying that there’s a contagion effect with every incident encouraging copy cats, little progress has been made.

Revenge-seeking males make up 98% of these shooters. Some shooters are White Supremacists, prompting the Justice Department to consider federal hate crime charges. A hate crimes expert at the Criminal Justice Program at Wake Forest University School of Law, said, “We’re seeing the confluence of violence, easy access to guns and political rhetoric that does not condemn and often supports violence against minorities.”

Some shooters experience multiple stressors in the years before they attacked, often related to mental health, finances and work. COVID has magnified that stress and we are now three times more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety.

Red Flag laws allow family members or law enforcement to file for an Emergency Protection Order (“EPO”) against someone they feel poses an imminent risk if allowed to purchase firearms. But some states, including Maine, refuse to enact Red Flag laws.

The passion for semi-automatic firearms means that few states currently ban these weapons despite research demonstrating that such bans can help prevent gun violence. Many who oppose gun regulation maintain that mental health that should be addressed, not legislation regarding guns. With the motto, “Guns kill people, not people”, they are outraged by the idea of enacting limits on guns. And we’ve seen many states passing permitless carry legislation in response.

Yet, the mental health excuse for not passing gun legislation defies the research into mass shootings. Researcher Mark Follman, the author of Trigger Points, explains that there’s “a very rational thought process” behind the planning and logistics of many mass shootings. One example is the 2022 Uvalde, Texas, elementary school mass shooting by a 18-year-old former student. After shooting his grandmother at their home, he drove to the school and fatally shot 19 students, two teachers and injured 17 others. His planning was evident: he’d bought two assault rifles, wore body armor, wrote a racist manifesto, and live-streamed his attack.

In the case of the U.S. Army reservist in Maine, there were definitely mental health issues. You would think that his gun ownership would then be curtailed, but it wasn’t. It was legal.

Common sense laws regarding guns have been urged by law-enforcement agencies, business leaders, medical professionals. But the influence of the National Rifle Association (NRA) make such common sense impossible, even as guns have been banned at their national conventions to protect speakers like Former President Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

Hopes for change were doused when the objections to pro-gun control advocacy after the Uvalde mass shooting proved greatly effective. These objections to any gun control are likely to be as aggressive, if not more so given the new House speaker, after the Maine shooting. Yet there may be hope that both mental health and gun control will be addressed simultaneously as one of Maine’s elected officials changed his mind about bans given what has happened.

If ever there was a time to consider the issue of guns in voting, this year is it. Don’t miss your chance to influence limits on mass shootings. We cannot go on like this.