My ex-husband might be the next mass shooter, and there’s nothing that I can do about it.

I think about this every time that there’s a mass shooting. Reading the revelations about Nikolas Cruz’s background hit me particularly hard. Chances are, that my ex-husband will continue to live on the razor’s edge of violence, along with the thousands of people just like him. But… if I ever turned on the news and saw his name scrolling across the screen, I would be yelling “DAMMIT!” and not “WHAT?!”

Bob was always a troublesome child. Always. When he was young, his dad went overseas, and his mom had to raise him on her own. She was a little older, and already had 3 full grown sons, so she thought she knew what she was in for. But Bob was a handful. Not in an “OMG that kid is so hyper!” kind of way. But in a way where you just don’t understand where that level of anger and violence comes from in a young child. He was so incredibly smart, but always getting into trouble. I’ve had long, emotional talks with his mother about what he was like when she was raising him, and that woman tried as hard as she could. He saw dozens of different psychiatrists, and was given dozens of different diagnoses, and dozens of different medications to “give a try.”

His mom told me about one time when he was 8 or 9 years old, and he said to her “Sometimes I fantasize about killing you.” She was startled. She would do anything to help him, but she saw the pain in his eyes turn into coldness, and even though she’s ashamed to admit it, she knew that may have been more emotionally disconnected after that. It’s easy to say that you wouldn’t, that you’d remain objective and understand that he’s struggling with some kind of mental illness, but I can also understand a mother that’s been punched, kicked, spit on, screamed at from just a monster of a child having moments where she’s just tired, and doesn’t know what to do. He was a hard child to love. Of course, she did love him, but it was never easy, and it wore her down.

In high school, right after Columbine when all of the high schools were freaking out and nervous about any Goth kids, some girls in his school told a teacher that he had a “list” of people he wanted to kill. To this day, he swears that he did not, but the small, rural school said it was the final straw and expelled him. It had been a long battle with appointments with counselors and medications and performance plans, and they weren’t equipped to deal with him. He was disruptive, and people were afraid of him.

He got his GED shortly after with little effort. His intelligence was the one quality that kept people invested. He was surrounded by adults that truly wanted to help him, but there was something inside him intent on pissing on progress. Now he was home all day and just continued being an unruly kid, except now he was a foot taller than his mom, and strong. He had a small group of misfit friends that would roam around and annoy people. They had downloaded the Anarchist’s Cookbook, and other similar text files from the burgeoning internet, and would construct things like homemade napalm to burn in the driveway. You can still see the scorch marks in the pavement. They’d make CO2 bombs and stick them in the middle of a stack of AOL Free Trial CD’s, bring them to the train tracks and light the fuse, excitedly running and ducking under a bridge like action heroes, undoubtedly causing old ladies in bathrobes to look out their front door to investigate the noise.

His father had gotten back from Iraq, and found it a little easier to engage with him with projects like working on cars or computers, but he also was the victim of Bob’s fits of rage. I think his parents were desperately hoping that this was a phase, and weren’t sure how much of it was teenage angst, and while everyone had lots of judgments and whispers behind their backs about what they would do differently, nobody knew what it was like, and nothing was working. Bob pretty much did whatever he wanted anyway, because they could ground him all they wanted, but unless they were ready to physically restrain him, they couldn’t control him. It’s easy to come up with things that they could have done, but I believe both of them when they say that they tried everything they could and were just at a loss. His mom begged for some kind of resource, read parenting books, talked to doctors, but if Bob didn’t want to change, nothing could make him.

I met him when I was 16. We met in a chatroom for a group of local computer geeks, and Bob had a reputation as someone who could be disruptive and difficult, but was also a defacto leader through sheer brute force. He also knew his shit. If he was challenged, he’d go on the offensive quickly, and everyone learned that to keep the peace, just don’t mess with him. I was going through my own difficult time, consumed by the teenage colored perception that the world was out to get me and life wasn’t fair. We started talking in private chats. We bonded over our loneliness and mutual disdain for the popular kids. I referred to him as my boyfriend before we even met in real life. I was consumed by him. Despite his negative qualities, he could be very charming. I was drawn into his darkness. He felt dangerous, and I felt special. I knew all of his inner thoughts that he couldn’t tell anyone else. He opened up to me, and only me, and I felt important and loved. Both of us had felt like outsiders among our peers, and clung to each other’s acceptance. During the summer, his father would drive him 45 minutes away to meet up with me every single day. He started to see a different side of his son — he was less angry, he even smiled occasionally.

Of course, he still acted like a jerk. I was over his house one day, and we were making out in his bedroom. His mom knocked on the door and asked if she could get us anything, and he yelled back “Mom — leave us the fuck alone!” I remember being shocked by that, because even though all angsty teenagers hate their parents, I would be grounded for life if I ever spoke like that to mine. I really liked his parents, and we’d chat whenever Bob wasn’t in the room, but then he’d come back in and rush me out the door, muttering about how he hated his parents and I shouldn’t talk to them. Then he’d expect his father to drive him to visit me the very next day! It was really awkward… I’d come out to meet him and wave hello to his dad, as Bob would get out of the car wordlessly and rush towards me. I’d turn around and give his dad a helpless smile and a squeaked out “Thanks!” as he drove away. One time Bob asked me why I was thanking him, and I told him that it was nice of him to drive back and forth constantly just so we could hang out, and there’s no way my parents would put up with that. He didn’t respond, but just quietly mulled it over, like it was the first time that had occurred to him.

One time his father wouldn’t drive him to visit me, and holy shit… Bob just about lost his mind. We had been on the phone (we were almost always on the phone when we weren’t together) and had been talking about what we were going to do later that day. Bob asked his dad what time he was taking him, and I don’t remember why, but his father said that he wasn’t. I could barely recognize the person that responded. “WHAT?!” It wasn’t the plaintiff yell of a hormonal teenager, it was low and primal and…. Scary. What followed was hours of screaming and crying, punctuated by me yelling helplessly into the phone that it was OK and it didn’t matter and that I loved him and I’d see him the next day and pleading with him to calm down. But he was seething with anger, like a dog frothing at the mouth, unable to see reason or anything beyond the primal need to bite the fuck out of the first thing they saw. It went on like that all day. Bob had holed himself up in his room, hanging onto the phone like I was his only tether to humanity. Then something would happen that would start the arguing again. I heard glass breaking, and the sound of something crashing. Bob had thrown his plate at the door and punched his desk, causing a cascade of computer parts and CD’s to come crashing down around him. Someone opened the door to check on him, which triggered him to charge at them. They quickly shut the door, and unbeknownst to him, called the police. Bob came back to the phone and kept talking to me, nearly hyperventilating. He was crying, exhausted. He had worn himself down. Then he saw the blinking lights of the police car pulling into the driveway. “FUCKKKKK!” He threw the phone down and I heard what I thought was the sound of him punching a wall, but he was actually bashing his head against the wall, something that he later admitted to doing quite regularly when he couldn’t control himself. I heard an officer come in and the phone returned to the receiver. I called back over and over and eventually all I got was a busy signal. Someone had put the phone off the hook. Bob had already given up by then, and the family talked it through and didn’t want to press charges. If he had an arrest record, it would be hard for him to find a job, something they desperately wanted, and the monster inside him had been quieted for the night. They weren’t angry, just worried, and his mom sat on the side of his bed hugging her son with everything she had in her, reassuring him as he apologized over and over.

I’m not an angry person. I was depressed and lonely and had low self-esteem, but it never occurred to me to be mean to people. I’ve always been thoughtful and I wear my heart on my sleeve. I know that there’s evil in the world, but I try to counter it by kindness. Much to my own detriment, I habitually give people the benefit of the doubt. So it was strange how well Bob and I got along. I wasn’t intentionally trying to change him, but I couldn’t help but notice that I was having an effect on him. I had seen a different side of him the night of the argument with his parents, but the next day, he was in such a good mood, and I didn’t have the heart to bring it up and ruin the day. He had even made a point to turn around to his father and pointedly say “Thank you” after he got of the car. His dad just nodded stoically, but I knew that he was beaming inside, hoping once again that they had crossed some kind of threshold.

Bob was always kind to me, I had not yet been on the receiving end of his anger. I thought maybe that all he needed was more love, and I could help him. He was completely consumed by me, and the feeling was mutual. We’d tell each other all our deepest thoughts. Bob let himself be weak around me. He opened up about his anger and how he didn’t want to be mad all the time. He kept trying to warn me that I wouldn’t be able to love him, and I kept reassuring him that I would. He kept alluding to things that he had done in the past… hurting animals, breaking things, pushing away everyone that loved him. He felt like he had passed the point of no return with his parents, that they couldn’t still love him. I told him that of course they did, and I could see it all the time, and they would do anything for him. He told me that it hurt to think about them still loving him, because they shouldn’t. He told me that he was a monster.

Our first Christmas together was wonderful. I loved the holidays, and my excitement was contagious. My parents drove us to the mall so I could go shopping for presents, and suddenly Bob wanted to go to a jewelry store. He purchased a bracelet for his mother, and was absolutely giddy about it. He was like the Grinch that day, his heart overflowing with the joy of generosity and the holiday spirit. We went to a store that sold pocket knives, and he agonized over which one to buy for his father, finally settling on the perfect one. Once we returned to my house, I brought all the wrapping paper and accoutrements up to my room, and giggled over how terribly he had wrapped his parents’ presents. I started to rewrap them, and he paid close attention to my instructions on hiding seams, tape placement, and where to fold. He rewrapped the next one perfectly, and I tied the bows on for him. He was adamant that we hide the presents in his backpack, because he wanted to surprise his parents. He was in a fantastic mood. Later that week, we went to a different store, and they had a volunteer ringing a bell for donations. Bob stopped me and gave her a $20 bill, which was surprising for me, as well as the volunteer. She gave him a hug and flower, and he kept talking about how happy it made him. Once Christmas finally came, I sat with his family while they opened presents, and Bob paced back and forth before finally handing over his gifts. His parents were shocked, nervously laughing almost like it was a joke. He urged them to open them, and when they did, they both were openly crying and hugging him. Later that day, when I was alone with his mom for a bit, she confessed to me that this was the first time he had ever gotten them presents. “Ever?!” I was shocked! She hugged me and held onto me, whispering how grateful she was that he found me.

Our life together continued like this, entire days consumed by his overwhelming rage over something completely irrelevant, me frantically trying to calm him down, him finally running out of steam, leaving himself open and wounded and receptive to my affection, and me frightened and confused and worried about whether I could handle this. But then there’d be these moments like Christmas that filled me with hope and overwhelmed me with love for this man. I convinced myself that Christmas Bob was the real Bob, and plate throwing psycho Bob was someone that would eventually go away.

I completely isolated myself with him. He had something negative to say about everyone, and he was smart and made good points, and one by one, I let him convince me that my friends really were awful. I always considered myself a strong person, and I never thought that I could be tricked by someone. In the moment, my reasons for not talking to someone felt like they were my own. They were immature, or a bad influence on me, or making fun of me. Many years later, looking back, it felt like I was someone else. I never actually disliked any of these people. It just happened slowly, where it became easier to just accept his thoughts as my own thoughts. He’d blow up over such simple things, and I could never see it coming, and when he was mad, it was all consuming, and I hated it. I knew that if I could just bear the brunt of the storm, eventually he’d break through the anger, and then we could have a real conversation. There would be entire days where he was inconsolable, punching walls, throwing anything breakable, spitting out the most hurtful, insidious things I could imagine, and I’d always be caught off guard, so surprised that he was mad that I wouldn’t even yell back, I’d just keep trying to get him to see reason and understand that I wasn’t the bad guy. I’d think it had to just be a misunderstanding, something that I did wrong, and so he didn’t really mean those things, and he’d apologize once he’d calm down. And he did, and he’d overwhelm me with kindness and apologies and kisses, and the next day he’d be so sweet that I didn’t have it in me to ruin it with holding a grudge, or being upset. If I did, he’d call me out for it, telling me not to keep continuing it and it’s over. And I was just so happy that it was over, I listened.

If you’ve ever seen a Lifetime movie, alarm bells should be going off. I had disabled those alarms a long time ago. He was the only one that I was close to. He convinced me that he was the only one that would ever love me, and that we were soul mates, the only two people that could put up with each other. I felt like I was the only one that could put up with him, so I assumed that it must be true. He hated everyone but me. We’d hang out with a group of friends, and then the entire ride home he’d complain about how they were so stupid. He hated the television, and we weren’t allowed to watch it. It was “the opiate of the masses.” He got increasingly political, listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio all day. There was an ideological war going on behind the scenes, and only the smart people could see it. One day the citizens would have to overthrow the government, because it would turn into a police state, and he would “never kneel at the feet of a jack booted thug trying to take his guns.” Oh… yeah, I should mention that we had guns. There as a gun safe prominently displayed in the living room, and we had enough that the news would call it an arsenal, although that’s true for anything more than 1 or 2. I guess I should talk about that.

I had never touched a gun before I met him, but he grew up in a rural area where it was just a way of life. Everyone had guns. The houses were isolated and if someone broke in, it would take way too long for the cops to get there. People kept to themselves. There’s a deep seated pride over the ability to protect your own property and defend yourself. Some people had farms, and you’d hear stories about someone needing to shoot a coyote that was going after their livestock. And shooting was fun. Bob would set up cans at a distance and taught me how to shoot. He was actually a really great teacher, and taught a number of our friends over the years how to shoot. He knew a lot about guns, and people from the suburbs were always curious about the topic, and Bob would gladly offer to teach them. He was adamant about gun safety. I had the rules of trigger discipline and not muzzle sweeping people drilled into me before I ever touched a gun.

“You assume that every gun is loaded, even if someone tells you that it isn’t. You have to check for yourself by visually inspecting the chamber.”

“NEVER point a gun at someone unless you intend to fire at them. NEVER touch the trigger unless you are 100% ready to shoot.”

“If you are ever in a situation where you have to fire at someone, be prepared to kill them, because there’s no guarantee that you can fire a non-lethal shot. If someone is advancing toward you, shoot to kill, not to disable, because you don’t have time to fail.”

“Never fire at something unless you know what’s behind it.”

“Always wear ear and eye protection at the range, even though it looks stupid.”

I might have paraphrased that last one.

I guess that’s why Bob’s firearm hobby never set off any red flags for me. As angry as he could be at times, when it came to guns, he was calm and in control. His anger would surface most often when he felt insecure, and guns let him focus on something that he knew in and out. I still don’t know what to think about it. Most of his gun purchases were in response to some discussion about new legislation in reaction to a shooting. We bought a .308 after Sandy Hook, and he frequently would buy ammo in bulk when he found a good price. There’s a belief among gun enthusiasts that when the SHTF (“Shit Hits The Fan” ©) certain ammunition will become impossible to find, and the prices skyrocket based on the news, so he bought ammo in bulk if he found a good price. Bob bought guns because he retained that pride in being able to defend his home and property, because he was paranoid about a potential for future societal collapse, because he found a good deal on one, because he wanted to own one before it was banned, and because they were fun or cool. People always ask why the common citizen needs an AR-15, and it’s the same reason that people want Porsche’s or Ferrari’s, or why the top speed on a car is a selling point. The speed limit is never more than 70 MPH, why do you care if it can do 140? Because it’s cool. Because you like the sound the engine makes. Because it raises your adrenaline when you’re driving it, and it’s exciting to control something powerful. It’s the same thing for guns. It’s empowering making things explode. It’s empowering to know that you can protect yourself when you’re home alone and its dark out. And it’s exhilarating to make this big black stick make a really loud noise and knock something over far away.

Whenever politics turned to a major push for gun control, it made him dig his heels in deeper. It was a threat, and much of the rhetoric that he listened to was so over the top apocalyptic about these being the signs that the war is coming. You know… the war where all the liberals are coming to take your guns, and then the commies take over, and then we descend into tyranny. He listened to conservative talk radio all day long at work. It definitely seeped into Bob’s subconscious. I have very strong political opinions, and so did Bob, but there was this really dehumanizing quality that he assigned to people who he disagreed with. Despite my prodding, he truly didn’t seem capable of empathizing.

His anger continued to escalate, slowly. You make slight adjustments, you walk on a few more eggshells, and anger becomes normal. He was amazing at gas lighting. Only at the very end of our relationship, I’d start writing things down specifically, or recording him. Typically we’d have an argument where he would say some truly vile things, and then later on if I brought it up, he’d say I was so sensitive, and I was deliberately not dwelling on the individual statements, because they hurt and I just wanted to forget them. Whenever we weren’t fighting, why make a conscious choice to bring up some stuff he said in the past? Then I’d be the one causing drama. When Bob wasn’t mad at me, he was mad at society. He used to say “All men lead a life of quiet desperation”, and talk about how my existence was the only thing that kept him grounded.

The hardest thing for me to deal with was not knowing when or where he’d explode. One time we were driving home, and some guy cut him off. Bob was being a dick about it, because the guy had his blinker on and was trying to get off of an exit, and Bob wouldn’t let him in. So the guy cut in anyway. This sent Bob off the rails. He laid on his horn for a humiliating amount of time… I sunk down as far as I could in the seat. Then, once off the exit, he started to follow the guy, clinging right to his bumper. I started freaking out, because if the guy slammed on his breaks, we’d hit him very hard, and Bob said that he’d love if he did that, because then he’d call the cops on him. I might be misremembering some detail, because that doesn’t make any sense, but the more important point was that we could get hurt, and Bob was risking our lives to scare some guy. We were weaving around backroads now, and I was terrified and screaming at Bob to stop. What if this guy had a gun? What if Bob made this guy get into an accident? Why was Bob so *angry* about this stupid guy? I couldn’t stand it anymore and the next time he made a turn, I grabbed the steering wheel and turned it the other way. Bob wasn’t expecting it, and I put on the E-Brake and grabbed his car keys before he could react. I knew that I was making myself the target of Bob’s anger, but I just wanted no part of this craziness, and I couldn’t stand the idea of someone getting hurt over this nonsense. Only after an hour of arguing on the side of the road did I catch the detail that the guy had a political bumper sticker that upset Bob. He saw political ideology as some kind of life or death game for the future of the country. Liberals weren’t just people he disagreed with, they were people actively contributing to the downfall of society and they must be stopped. We finally got to a point where he had calmed down enough for me to hand over the keys, but I always wondered what would have happened if I wasn’t in the car. I couldn’t always be with him when he flipped out, and it worried me.

Late in our marriage, I demanded that Bob see a psychiatrist. We had gone to therapy together years ago, but Bob was amazing at acting so reasonable with strangers. If I brought up a fight that we had a week before, Bob would minimize it, which made me think it wasn’t a big deal, and then in the car ride home he’d yell at me for making him look bad and bringing up old issues. But I needed Bob to get help. He had this habit of punching himself in the head over and over when he was angry, and it just seemed like he was angry more and more. He hated everything. When he’d start up yelling at me, there was a small part of me that was almost bored, because I knew that we had hours of fighting to go before Bob would calm down. He would say things that I still can’t get out of my head. He’d insult everything that I loved. He hated medication and the pharmaceutical industry, and for the record, I have some real beef there as well, but I told him that I didn’t care anymore, and I didn’t care if he was drugged up, he needed something. And he needed to make the appointment on his own. After months of prodding, he did, and he was prescribed klonapin to take when he was angry, which he rarely took, and if he did take them he’d just get sleepy. For 6 months he would tell his psychiatrist that things were going well. I realized that people had to want to change, and I couldn’t make him care.

He always used to tell me that I was the only person that kept him sane. He told me that if I ever left, he’d kill himself. He told me that if he ever killed himself, he wouldn’t waste it, he’d do it in a way that killed other people. He fantasized about death by cop scenarios and going down in a blaze of glory. He’d talk about how many people he’d think he could shoot before the cops took him out. How much of that was a manipulation to make me stay? I don’t know. But the last year that we were together was spent with me trying to gather the courage to leave. I wasn’t afraid of him personally, but I was afraid for my loved ones and for strangers. If he wanted to really hurt me, he wouldn’t kill me, he’d kill my parents, or my friends, or my dogs. What if he went on a shooting spree to get back at me? I know that logically, no one would blame me, but I could never forgive myself. I felt obligated to keep him stable.

We were at a bar, and had a massive crazy over the top argument on the way home. I was driving, and I slammed my fist down to make a point. It was dark in the car and I accidentally punched his leg. He responded by slamming my head repeatedly into the driver’s side window. I was in shock and don’t remember a lot from that night because it all blurs together. I just wanted to get home, and I didn’t want to stop driving. I thought that if I continued to drive, I’d be less of a target for him, because he’d also want to get home. But I knew that a line had just been crossed. There were times where I almost wanted him to hit me, because then I knew that it wasn’t in my head. I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t exaggerating. He either hit me or he didn’t. We drove home in relative calmness, and when we got to the house, he opened his gun safe and took out a gun, and laid on the couch with it. I asked him what the fuck was going on, and he said it was in case I got any ideas and tried to call the cops on him. He slept on the couch like that. I knew that he wasn’t just threatening me, he was threatening anybody that tried to intervene. The next morning, he acted like everything was normal. We went out to breakfast. I was still in a daze and playing it by ear. He was being pleasant, and it was disconcerting, like I had imagined the whole thing. I hesitantly asked him if he was going to even apologize, and he sighed deeply and shook his head disapprovingly. He was just trying to enjoy his pancakes, and here I was dredging up the past again. He calmly said that no, he wasn’t, because he knew it would just happen again, and he was tired of apologizing. And then he went back to his breakfast. I told him that I couldn’t live like this, and went back to mine.

I left him later that week, completely terrified. I had warned him over and over that I would, but he later confessed to never taking it seriously. I didn’t want it to come to this, and I had to walk away from my house and my furniture and everything that I had worked so hard for, because I didn’t want to hear about how I had left him destitute. I wanted it to be abundantly clear that all I wanted was to get away from him. I expected the barrage of hate that came my way as I backed out of the driveway. He didn’t chase me. And once that passed, there was the crying, and the promises. And then back to anger. He was throwing everything he could at me, oscillating between variations of crazy to try to find the one that would get me to come back, ignoring the fact that I had told him what I needed. I needed him to show me that things would change, and gave him concrete steps that he could take to show me that he was motivated. He chose dramatics instead, refusing to budge unless I came home, still assuming that this was some manipulation on my part, and he wasn’t going to waste his time making changes unless I came home first. But I knew that would give him the win he needed to be complacent, and I stood my ground. I had finally seen him for who he was, and once that spell had been broken, it stifled his ability to hurt me. He blamed my friends that I was staying with for poisoning my brain and turning me against him.

The next few weeks were touch and go with some crazy text messages exchanged. He threatened to kill himself…but he never did. He tweeted about me, about how I was destroying his life and how broken he was and I was the only one that he could ever love… but 1 month later he had a new girlfriend. He drove by the house I was staying at a few times, but ultimately things stayed OK. When I filed for divorce, I told him that there would be a State Marshall coming to serve him the papers, just so he wasn’t surprised by the cops knocking on his door. He said he’d start digging the graves. Later he said he was joking. Hah.

It’s been almost 10 years now, and I still deal with the remnants of that emotional baggage. I’m always waiting for the ball to drop. No matter how calm and happy things are, there’s a part of me that holds out for it to change. We had breakfast together after our divorce was finalized. I asked how things were with his new girlfriend. He tells me that he’s better at hiding his anger, and saves his freak-outs for when he’s alone in the car. He said that I’m the only one that really knows him, and that he’ll never love anyone the same way that he loved me. I know deep down that if he’s ever up on a clock tower, I’ll always have to be the one to talk him down. We’re still friends on Facebook, because I have the burden of making sure that he’s stable. He’s may have learned to hide it, but I still know who he becomes when he loses his grip.

Apparently he’s taken up cocaine now, so that’s reassuring.

So let’s talk options. What can I do?

What do we do with people like Bob to prevent mass shootings? If Bob did snap one day and went to a crowded event with a gun, this is how the media narrative and the conversations on social media would go:

The first argument that comes up after a mass shooting is gun control. This is an emotional topic for a lot of people, and the point of this article is not to try to change your opinion on gun control. I have my opinions, but as far as politics go, it doesn’t even make my top 5 list of things I care about. The reason that I’m going to talk about it at all, is because this article is about Bob, and people like him, and the things that are most often talked about that absolutely won’t work. But I’m not here to lecture you, and I don’t want to lose you by talking about guns. I’ll try to keep it quick.

The first questions asked are what weapons were used, and how did the shooter acquire them? Based on those answers, or assumptions, usually in the initial news story, the focus turns to one or more of these gun control measures.

Banning certain people access to guns / making the requirements to get a gun harder — Objectively, one could make the argument that they do not feel comfortable with Bob owning guns. And honestly, I would tend to agree with them. I think that on a whole, I personally am not thrilled that if the day should come where Bob decides that he no longer can control his rage, that he has a multitude of weapons available at his disposal. The problem comes with trying to scale that gut feeling up into legislation that applies to everyone. What objective qualities does Bob have that could be used to disqualify him from purchasing a weapon? He has no arrest record, no prior violent offenses. Some people suggest banning people with a record of mental health issues. Then the question becomes, which mental health issues, and how would the system account for someone’s ability to get better? If you were depressed after your mother died, and were prescribed some anti-depressants (keep in mind, that 90% of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications are prescribed by a primary care physician), are you flagged as someone with a history of depression for life? What about childhood behavioral issues, like oppositional defiance disorder, that do not follow the person into adulthood? A side effect that most certainly will happen, is that individuals that wish to own firearms will simply not seek mental health support if there is the potential for them to become disqualified from future ownership. I have absolutely no doubt that Bob would never have seen a psychiatrist if he thought that there might even be a chance that it would affect his eligibility.

Banning people access to certain types of guns — Historically, legislation aimed at certain types of guns has been a direct reaction to a specific shooting, and not based in facts or statistics. The focus is on the “scary” looking guns, and as shown with the assault rifle ban, manufacturers were able to circumvent the bans by making very minor cosmetic changes. This is because there is no official definition of an “assault rifle.” If you asked your average person that supports tighter gun control, but has limited experience with firearms, to identify which guns they’d like to ban by showing them pictures, they’re going to choose weapons that are black, look scary, and have a variety of doo-dads attached to them that make them look more intimidating, but have no effect on their ability to be deadly. Simply put, there are much deadlier weapons that are just as easy to acquire, that are able to escape most definitions of an “assault weapon” because they look boring.

The other complication is that of statistics. When we talk about gun violence and gun deaths, there is A LOT of massaging of the numbers that occurs on both sides of the debate. The definition of “mass shooting” is surprisingly contentious. Don’t take my word for it… next time you see a statistic that upsets you, dig into the data and look at the individual cases that are contributing to that number. No matter how you work the data though, or what definition you use, “mass shootings” make up an extremely small percentage of gun related deaths. And even if you don’t include suicides (which make up 67% of gun deaths), the most common gun by a huge majority (82%) is handguns. In 2012, only 322 people total were killed by *any* kind of rifle. I’m not explaining this just in an effort to argue “my side”. I don’t want to make you feel defeated. It’s just the simple fact that an assault rifle ban would make a lot of people feel better, but would not actually make any difference.

Limiting large quantities of ammo — Should I bother talking about this? Potentially add paragraph about how despite the reporting of an “arsenal” and not counting Stephen Paddock, shooters simply cannot ever make use of whatever ammo they stockpile, and it just is used as a scare tactic.

The second thing that gets immediately talked about is asking “Who knew?”

Did the shooter tell anybody, or show any warning signs? I sometimes imagine how I would respond in the aftermath of Bob doing something terrible. I’m weird like that. As his ex-wife, I imagine that my phone would be ringing off the hook within an hour of his name being released. I try to think through what I would respond with when reporters would ask me “Did you ever think he was capable of this?” Capable? Yes, of course. “Did he ever talk about wanting to hurt people?” Well… yeah. Plenty of times. One time when I was considering going to my high school reunion, he responded by casually telling me how he would have loved to go to his high school reunion and laugh at the looks of horror on those popular vapid bitches faces as they watched their friends and loved ones be slaughtered in front of them. We were eating dinner, and I dropped my fork and glared at him. “Really, Bob?” He rolled his eyes and chuckled to himself. “No, not really. But the answer is no, I have absolutely no intention of accompanying you to some stupid party filled with those ghetto morons that probably all work at Walmart now that were never really your friends anyway. Why would you want to even see any of those assholes again?” It wasn’t worth fighting over. But to answer the question, yes, he routinely relished the idea of large swathes of people dying at his hand. He said it calmed him down. Was that a warning sign? The study of mass shooters (get official name) in 20xx showed that a common theme in mass shootings was that there were other people that they discussed their plans with, but people usually thought that they were joking, or didn’t take them seriously.

Why didn’t you act on that information? Yeah. I imagine that I’d be asking myself that a lot. Why didn’t I act on that information? Because we’ve been divorced for 8 years, and we were together for 10 years, and he hasn’t done anything yet. Because yes, shooters almost always do talk about it with friends and show warning signs before they act, but the missing side of that finding is how often people talk about committing violence and really are joking? Who exactly should I tell? And what should they do about it? He’s an adult. If I called the cops, they’d talk to him and ultimately say that there’s nothing they can really do without a specific threat for a specific date or group of people. And what else could I expect from them? What do we do with people like Bob? It’s estimated that up to 4% of people are sociopaths, and we’re surrounded by people every day that might be on the razor’s edge of losing their mind and hurting people, but until they do, they can be as hateful and angry as they want.

At some point in the media coverage after a shooting, once the first wave of arguing online about gun control has passed, a subsection of people on both sides split off to reframe the focus on mental health. I’m never completely certain what the recommendations here are, but I think it mostly centers on awareness and accessibility to mental health resources.

Bob had access to mental health resources. He was aware of mental health issues, and he knew how to seek help. The mental health resources available to him failed him, because we just don’t have the knowledge necessary about the workings of the brain to help him. I’m not even comfortable conceding that something is “wrong” with him. I truly don’t know what percentage of Bob is choice, and what percentage is biology wreaking havoc in his brain. Neither do doctors. As a child, every doctor had a new diagnosis and a new drug recommendation, always on the first visit. Bob had oppositional defiance disorder, intermittent explosive disorder, bipolar disorder, depression… his family lost faith in the mental health community after a while. As an adult, my armchair diagnosis of him trends towards sociopathy. And we have absolutely no idea what to do with people like him. As children, they’re often put into facilities, because when they explode they can become dangerous and their parents are at a loss. Medicine can only do so much. If the patient sees no reason to change and isn’t motivated, then what else can be done?

This is a recurring theme with mass shooters. Adam Lanza had lots of psychiatric opinions. James Holmes became interested in neurology because he knew that something was wrong with his brain, and science couldn’t help him. This isn’t a case of untreated mental illness due to lack of trying, it’s untreated because we don’t know how to treat it.

So that’s my confession.

I know about a ticking time bomb that probably will go about his life continuing to tick quietly and will never hurt anyone. Bob isn’t a monster. I married him because I loved him, and I always will have love for him. He’s just broken in a way that only he can fix, and trying to help him was breaking me. I’ll always feel some level for responsibility for him, and there’s a weight on my mind knowing that I’ll never have an answer for him. Some nights when it was just us looking up at the stars and talking about the meaning of life, he’d get a glimpse of a simpler life where he didn’t hate everything and he could just feel content. He’d ask me “Why am I like this?” I would have given anything to be able to answer that not only for him, but for everyone that he would interact with in his life.