Letter: School shooting a mental health issue

The Sandy Hook tragedy is fundamentally a mental health issue. Everyone wants to prevent it, but no one wants to pay for it. Instead of focusing on addressing mental health both sides have now gone nuts and focused solely on the instrument used. Both sides are stuck in a "no guns," "my guns" chant-fest with no common grounds in sight.

Gun owners like me should be the first voice of reason and propose a reasonable funding solution. Like the Pittman-Robertson Act of 1937, we gun owners should advocate a user pay, user benefit law. Exercise a mental health tax of five percent on all new purchases of guns, accessories and ammo. A 10 percent tax on high capacity magazine or large ammunition purchases. And a $10 fee on any execution of a NICS background checks.

This tax should also extend to violent video games, music and movies. Exercise a seven percent mental health tax on any commercially sold videos games, music or movies containing violence. And lastly, for those screaming it's for the children and in the spirit of user pay, user benefit. Reduce the earned income credit by five percent and Social Security by one percent and contribute that toward mental health. All together, it would generate somewhere between $1 billion-$2 billion per year. Codify all revenues to be used toward only the advancement mental health. It would be the largest infusement of revenue into mental healthcare in the history of the US.

It's time for both sides to put up or shut up.

Chong Yang

Plumas Lake