I've been thinking a lot about a former hockey teammate lately. She died in... 2005? It was a "suicide by cop," as someone explained to me—a term I'd never heard before. Apparently she'd locked herself in a closet with a gun, police responded, she shot through the door at them, and they fired back, killing her.
It's probably always been the case that a few folks who set out to commit suicide by cop try to take as many others with them as possible before dying themselves... but it's only in the last few years or so that we've made it *so. fucking. easy.*
I would love to see *all* guns banned. I would. But we can certainly start by banning the ones that can kill so very many people so very, very quickly, so a mental health crisis doesn't become a massacre.
I've been thinking about her lately because [a] it probably should have been social workers/a mental health crisis team that responded, and [b] suicide by cop happens so regularly now that I bet everyone knows the term.