I fired my first gun at seven. I still own several. I store them safely. I go to the range. I am married to a veteran. I support Wounded Warriors. I am not running an agenda to strip away constitutional rights.
I have also seen the cost of untreated mental illness firsthand. I have looked into the hopeless eyes of veterans with severe PTSD whose brains were unregulated and who were returned to firearms, stigma or homelessness instead of care.
I have lived this cost personally. My father died by suicide in our home when I was nine. I received no support afterward. I later attempted to end my own life at 12. Today, I sit on floors with suicidal teenagers who believe hope is gone forever. I work with families whose children are drowning in grief, trauma, disability and unmet needs. I was raised by an officer. I married a soldier. I am not anti-gun, anti-veteran, anti-police or anti-rights. I collaborate with these communities to build trauma-informed safety, not punishment.
I am a clinician. I understand developmental trauma, threat cues, attachment disruption, dysregulated nervous systems and the neuroscience of violence. I know what a dysregulated brain is capable of, and how quickly access to a weapon can turn a personal crisis into a permanent ending.
When lawmakers cut mental health funding, eliminate counselors, shrink crisis teams, bury families on waitlists and propose more concealed carry on campuses, that is not safety. That is policy malpractice. This is not about institutionalizing people or criminalizing disability. Forced treatment is not the answer. Lack of access and abandonment are not the answer either. Mental health access, support, early intervention, trauma-informed schools and trained responders save lives.
The science is clear. Early identification, stable attachment, and wrap-around care reduce suicide and violence. Punishment, stigma, isolation and untreated crisis escalate it. This is not ideology — this is neurobiology.
Yet some legislators now want more guns in the hands of young adults experiencing record stress, record suicide rates, record sexual victimization and whose brains are still developing decision-making capacity. Does that sound like prevention to anyone who has ever worked with youth or read the data? When teachers and students with developing brains are told to carry concealed weapons while supports are cut, lawmakers are adding gasoline to a structure fire and laying off the firefighters to save money.
To look at a clinician, child-safety advocate, suicide-loss survivor, suicide-attempt survivor and lifelong gun owner and call that a reasonable strategy is insulting. It is scientifically and morally bankrupt.
Children are dying from gun violence at the highest rate in modern U.S. history. We do not need another task force to prove it. We have the science. We have pediatricians, psychologists, neuroscientists, social workers, disability-justice advocates and trauma-informed educators pleading for investment. We do not lack knowledge. We lack courage.
You cannot tell me that more firearms in dysregulated systems, combined with fewer stabilizing supports, will reduce mortality. You cannot tell me fewer therapists and more triggers equals safety. You cannot tell me eliminating support and expanding lethality protects children.
Not to me. Not to someone who has buried people they love. Not to someone who almost became a statistic. Not to someone who has held a shaking 14-year-old and known that the difference between life and death is access to care, not a holster.
I support responsible gun owners. I am one. I support veterans. I am married to one. I support police. I collaborate with them. I support adults who store firearms safely and train appropriately. This is not about confiscation. This is not about shame. This is not about criminalizing or institutionalizing people with mental health diagnoses. I am a survivor. I am a mother. I am a protector of children.
This is about preventable death.
Here is the truth: clinical, measurable, cold truth. This approach will increase death. Not hypothetically. Not in some future scenario. Predictably. Repeatedly. Across communities.
We prevent violence by stabilizing humans, not escalating arms. Fund the mental health workforce. Expand care. Strengthen community supports. Store weapons safely. End stigma. Build community safety instead of fear.
We either tell the truth or we keep burying children. Do that, or stop pretending you care whether children live.
Amy Rich Crane is a pediatric trauma professional, public health advocate and gun owner from Epping.