I’ve been doing a lot of radio shows this week commenting about and being interviewed about the shootings in the last week – 2 churches in Colorado, the school bus, etc - It’s supposed to be holiday shopping not holiday shootings.  Why now? There seem to be so many reasons:1) Perhaps first and foremost I think is people crying out for help and slipping between the cracks – people with mental health problems who need help, treatment, medication and not getting it.  With “privacy” being such an issue in this country it’s difficult to get someone help if they don’t want to cooperate.  In “the old days” there used to be state mental hospitals that took care of a lot of folks who needed to be monitored if they were taking their drugs, they housed people who would be a danger to themselves or others – today – it is commonly thought that if you give people medicine, they can live in the community and for sure there are many who can, but there are those few who stop taking their medicine and others who need more than medicine, who also need talk therapy with a really good therapist and they are not getting it  Their pain is too much to bear and occasionally  they do something horrendous.2) Along with the need for therapy we need to look at who can afford it – and how many insurance companies will pay for more than 4-6 crisis sessions.  Many times people need more than what I call a 6 –session wonder – they really need a lot of help learning how to cope with life, how to relate to people, what to do with their personal pain, how to start life again3) We are a more violent society in general – kids see so much more violence on TV in movies, video games – it’s like violence is “normalized” in some part of some kids brain (only a select few)4) How we are parenting - how we are treated by parents, what do we learn at home in terms of how to cope with difficult feelings – and more importantly – are your parents aware of problem you are having and how much trouble or pain you are in.5)There are true mental illnesses involving an imbalance in the brain – these kinds of mental illnesses can be treated with a combination of specific medication and talk therapy.  They need to be treated – but sometimes kids are ignored, parents hope their kids will “grow out of it”  or parents are just hoping one day they’ll leave home at 18 and everything will be okay then.  We need to stop ignoring young adults who “don’t fit in,” who are different emotionally, we need to a take a risk and tell them life doesn’t have to be this painful, there is help for you.In the spirit of the season, if we get out of our comfort zone and help someone in emotional trouble, the world may be a more peaceful place.  We need to push ourselves as neighbors, friends and family members to make those tough calls and voice our concern, compare notes with others, and really try to get people the help they need.