Mental illness is something that both right and left-leaning people like to talk about after something like this. The right can use it to deflect the conversation away from guns, and the left can use it to advocate for universal healthcare. But the laws regarding mental health and who is allowed to own a firearm are already pretty reasonable; at the federal level it’s unlawful to sell a firearm to someone who is legally considered mentally defective or who has been committed to a mental health facility, with many state laws including stricter policies. And the thing is that a person with a mental illness is much more likely to hurt themselves than someone else with a firearm; this isn’t a good thing, of course, but isn’t necessarily a reason to make it illegal for someone with, say, depression to own a firearm. And anyone who’s healthy enough to know they should seek psychiatric help is probably healthy enough to listen to their psychologist’s advice that it would be dangerous for them to own a firearm, without needing to make it illegal.

Plus what you said. In these cases of middle class or richer shooters, it’s not about lack of access to mental healthcare, it’s about them choosing not to go, or something else entirely.

I’m in support of better access and less stigmatization of mental healthcare, and I’m in support of restricting the types and number of firearms that people can own and how they can purchase them, but I don’t think these are issues that need to be discussed as if they’re synonyms.