I realize that this is a real emotional time for everyone involved in the gun debate. But the discussion needs to be had. The fact is that no matter how many children mobilize or how many people demonstrate their outrage about gun violence, the issue will not be resolved because no one wants to talk about the elephants in the room. It is two huge elephants, each intertwined together. They are the almighty dollar and social divisiveness.

The Almighty Dollar

As much as everyone is talking about gun control, background checks and even banning guns, no one is talking about the one thing that will really influence the issue, shutting down gun manufacturers in America. There are about 100-gun manufacturers in the country making all sorts of guns and selling them to the public.

Sturm, Ruger & Company makes and sells over 900,000 guns annually. Of those, about 230,000 are rifles of which many are the AR-15-type of gun everyone is talking about. Smith & Wesson makes and sells about 680,000 guns a year. Remington Arms, makes and sells about 555,000 guns a year. Those are the top five-gun manufacturers in America.

According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), between 2012 and 2016, the United States was the largest exporter of weapons and munitions in the world. Russian follows and in a distant third-place is China. Think about that for a moment.

No one wants to talk about closing gun manufactures because it would be detrimental to the U.S. economy. Think about the losses in jobs and on the export market.

Everyone wants to talk about gun control, as if that is the solution.

México has strict gun control laws which, by the way, violate the Mexican Constitution. But almost everyone has a gun or has access to one. There is only one-gun store in México where a gun can be purchased. It is run by the government, and government permission is needed to purchase a gun there. Even then, the guns sold are of lower caliber, as the law limits high-capacity guns/rifles for military use only.

Yet, guns are plentiful as evidenced by the gun violence plaguing México today.

Most of the guns come from the United States and they are used to kill Mexicans in México.

It is easy to argue that México has lax rule-of-law and thus the gun control laws are circumvented with impunity.

But ask yourself this, how come in México there has only being one school shooting? On January 18, 2017, a mentally ill 15-year-old student opened fire in a school in Monterrey, Nuevo León, killing four and wounding five. Federico Guevara, the killer, killed himself after the shooting.

Now contrast that with the number of school shootings in the United States. As you think about that, let this sink in, universally, everyone argues that México is a country under siege with sky-high murders and the United States is safe country. Yet, in México there has only been one school shooting.

Why?

Social Divisiveness

There is inequality in the United States, no matter what Americans want to believe. It has been bubbling for generations and it is getting worse each day. The American society has two classes of people, divided by economic status. That is followed by skin color. The economic division is felt across all spectrums of society. The bottom economic class – the 99% – feels disfranchised everywhere. Be it the judicial system, where money tends to buy get out jail cards to the nation’s politics where money talks and everything else is ignored.

That is the fundamental truth that no one wants to accept.

The kid committed murder. That is a fact, although the judicial idiotic system forces us to use the “alleged” word, as if there is any question about his culpability. The notion that everyone is presumed innocent is an outright lie.

Nikolas Cruz is a murderer, say it and embrace it.

But, as with everything else, although we do not know the extent of the whole story, there is a social inequality problem at play. Think about this for a moment. Cruz, who lost his father, also lost his mother, leaving him and his brother homeless. There is also a history of violent outbursts, some of which involved the police and of mental illness.

But, the public officials did nothing, preferring to let the neighbors deal with the problem. There are many reason for this, but the underlining problem is that no one wants to talk about the failures of the American system.

The notion remains that the U.S. judiciary is about fairness and the presumption of innocence. That money does not play into the process. But, it is all a lie. Money is central to the judicial system in America. Money drives the lawyers who defend the drug dealers and murderers who game the system through technicalities to avoid being held to account.

The U.S. legal system is not about finding the “truth” but, rather about finding the technicality that keeps a defendant out of jail. Moreover, it is the money that forces the news stations to say or write “alleged” criminal even though the evidence is overwhelming. All of this under guise of “presumed innocent”. Yet, no one seems to have a problem when a defendant is paraded in chains and locked up before anyone has had the opportunity to find if they are guilty or not of the crime charged. How is that not punitive? How is that not assuming guilt before the evidence is heard?

You see, Americans like to pretend that it’s all good by ignoring the obvious right in front of their noses. Therein lies the problem, no one wants to have the talk that needs to be had.

But here is a mind sobering fact, earlier this month, on February 12, 2018 to be exact, Remington, the third-largest gun maker announced it was planning to file for bankruptcy protection. In its four-page regulatory filing announcing the bankruptcy, Remington identifies Bank of America as one of its largest lenders. Why did Colt file for bankruptcy in 2015 and now Remington is on the verge, because of the little dirty secret of the Almighty Dollar.

The gun manufacturers in America prosper when there is the threat of gun legislation in the country. They flounder when you have an American government in place that is believed to be not interested in the gun legislation.

Mull that over as you think about how to solve the school shooting problem in America.