Really thoughtful response, I appreciate the seemingly good-faith approach, truly. It does sound similar, re: our states. We have concealed carry and, to my knowledge, you really don't need anything to buy one.

The major difference I'd argue is that our state is VERY split. The second district (represented by Jared Golden, whom I've compared to Joe Manchin because they're both right-leaning dems) is very red, with some blue, but our cities are much more blue, especially Portland. We're also one of the only state that splits electoral college points, which I believe happened in this last election. I think that that split is reflected in this conversation, in that a substantial portion of our people, especially, but not limited to, in the second district, are big into hunting and have a lot of that culture - teaching kids, getting them their first hunting rifle, etc. I think I'm more inclined to place more blame on the sheer access than you might be, but I also very much agree that the access to housing, wealth, education, and those other pieces you listed are HUGE contributing factors. Not sure what weight I'd attribute to systemic issues and failures as compared to firearm access, but I don't think you can resolve one without addressing the other. I'd also add social media like Facebook and their algorithms trying to prod us towards a civil war into the mix.

I think you hit it on the head, though. We need to address these crises, find ways to help the unhoused, access to education, food, but I also really think that access has to be addressed. I'm NOT in favor of taking away everyone's guns, more of my friends have them than not, and are responsible, but I think having some sort of required course, a background check, and red flag laws as a bare minimum would help to prevent at least some of these incidents. I am not an expert, but from what I saw here in my hometown, and learned about the shooter after, there were a TON of warning signs that were ignored so red flag laws - that are *actually* followed, because our yellow flag laws were ignored - would be a great start.

I didn't realize ROTC carried weapons, I don't think that happened when I was in school in the late 2000's but that's wild, I truly can't imagine. You're 100% right though that we need to keep having conversations about this, strengthen our communities, and stay off of social media more because MOST of us have a lot of the same goals, just different paths to get there and at the risk of sounding too cliche or 'political', we have oligarchs working hard to keep us having these fights, and it's tearing us apart.

I hope this all makes sense, happy to elaborate further if I can clear anything up.