When you have a runny nose, you blow your nose and use nasal spray or antihistamines to dry it up. But the underlying condition that caused the runny nose remains untreated. People calling for more gun control, or increasingly, gun confiscation, are doing the exact same thing, leaving the underlying condition untreated.
I think the underlying condition is a massive tapestry of interconnected factors. Not a single one of which you can point to and say that's the cause. Mental illness is a factor, but humans have always had mental illness since the first humans. .It's hard for me to believe that what was a 1 or 2 percent of the population who had mental illness is now 40 or 50 percent of the population. I do know that too many are diagnosed with mental illness as a means of over prescribing mood altering (mind altering) drugs. But that's not the sole factor either.
Another factor is the victim mentality where people are taught from an early age to not take responsibility for their own actions. Another factor is basic manners are no longer being taught and as a result unacceptable behaviour is now accepted as normal. Things like being rude and selfish, talking back to authority figures such as teaches, not respecting authority. People have no shame, because outrageous behavior is accepted.
Many of you know me well enough to know I'm not religious. AT ALL. However, you can draw a straight line between the beginnings of the removal of God from schools and the decay of society today. When they pulled God out of the schools, they pulled right along with it the underlying teachings of religion such as morals, ethics, what is and is not acceptable, and the difference from right and wrong.