Although gun use by mass shooters, criminals and terrorists dominates the news, the vast majority of U.S. gun deaths happen in everyday situations involving ordinary, fallible people: our friends and neighbors, domestic partners, family members and ourselves. Yet, gun safety proposals are generally limited to “common sense” solutions: strengthening and expanding criminal background checks; imposing a terrorist watch list ban on gun sales; improving mental health screenings and services; and reinstituting the federal assault weapons ban . These are very important first steps, but they do not sufficiently address the reality of gun violence, and our increasingly open gun laws.

Since the 1970s, gun lobbyists have convinced millions of Americans that having a gun at the ready is essential for self-defense at home and in public. Gun permits have increased three-fold in the last decade. Firearm sales rise after every mass shooting in the belief that guns make us safer. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Gun access increases the incidence of domestic violence, homicide, accidental death and especially suicide (which constitutes 60 percent of gun deaths.) A 2014 meta-analysis found that access to firearms at home doubles the risk of death from gun-related homicide and triples the risk of suicide. One study found that when a gun is present in the home, that gun is 43 times more likely to kill a family member than to kill an intruder. When someone is depressed, enraged, chemically altered or careless, the presence of a gun allows serious violence to happen. A momentary impulse for revenge or self-harm can turn deadly in a flash if there is a gun handy. But the profound grief and suffering of the shooter and the victim’s loved ones endures forever.

Mental illness is a factor in some homicides, but not nearly to the extent imagined. As a psychologist specializing in risk assessments of young people involved with violence, I can attest to the fact that we are nowhere near being able to reliably screen for future violent actions. Moreover, people with mental illness are far more likely to be victims of gun violence or suicide than to be aggressors. Improving mental health services, while certainly worthwhile, is not a realistic way to make a major impact on gun violence.

Reinstating the federal assault weapons ban would probably reduce mass shooting deaths, given that the number of such deaths increased sharply in the period immediately following its expiration in 2004. But we will need additional measures to address the 98 percent of gun deaths by weapons other than assault weapons.

Correctable factors contributing to gun proliferation and gun violence include:

An explicit goal of the NRA leadership is to enable citizens to outgun the police or military to defend against “tyranny,” or against authorities who might try to take their guns away. We had a chilling glimpse of what this alarming goal could bring last month, when the besieged Dallas police were outgunned by a shooter, and turned to a robot-delivered bomb to stop him. Furthermore, the police could not tell who was shooting at them because others were “open-carrying” assault weapons. This is insanity. We have allowed NRA lobbyists and self-serving politicians to defy the will of the people by blocking every proposed gun safety reform — including expanding background checks which is supported by 90 percent of the country and 83 percent of gun owners.