On Tuesday, New York became the first state to pass a tough new law on gun ownership. But not the kind of gun ownership that is actually responsible for most of the murders in the U.S. No, just one targeted at making tragedies like Newtown, CT a little more difficult in the future to pull off.

But in focusing on these one-off tragedies that subjectively seem epic (but objectively, are a drop in our national murder-rate bucket), the over-reaction of the lawmakers was predictable.

So lawmakers have decided to turn every physician, nurse, social worker, therapist and mental health professional in New York into a new kind of mandated reporter — people who turn into police officers when it comes to certain behaviors. In doing so, lawmakers in New York have single-handedly shred the foundation of confidentiality and trust in the doctor/patient and therapist/client relationship.

Is this a sensible reaction?

USA Today on Thursday published an editorial hopeful entitled, Editorial: Fix broken mental health system. Which would be fine as a stand-alone piece advocating more money, focus and resources for our nation’s patchwork system of mental health and recovery care.

Instead, they — like many well-meaning but apparently brain-dead newspapers — tie the need to fix our mental health care system — something others have been advocating for for decades — to recent headline-news grabbing acts of atrocious violence.

Only buried in this hypocritical, two-faced gutter-piece editorial do you find the truth — “Only the tiniest fraction of the mentally ill ever become violent, and then, usually when they fail to get treatment.” It’s even worse than that — statistically speaking, mental illness is a horrible predictor of violence, and nobody who’s read the research would ever suggest otherwise.

I have no problem with you advocating to help people with mental health concerns. I have a big problem if you’re doing so because of violence in America. The two have little to no connection with one another.

Anyone can understand why school authorities would be jumpy, after the recent mass shooting at Newtown, CT.

But the recent suspension — and possible expulsion — of San Francisco high school student, Courtni Webb, is a fine example of how not to deal with suspected school violence.

Ms. Webb was suspended, according to news reports, for writing a poem about the Newtown killings, which apparently violated the school’s policy against threats of violence.

Poets, of course, have been deemed a threat to society ever since Plato banned them from his ideal “Republic.” Poetry, Plato argued, spoke to the heart, not the mind — and thus encouraged rebellion against the natural order of things.

But having heard Ms. Webb read her poem in its entirety, I found little in the way of violent rebellion, and certainly no overt threats to her classmates. Yes, the poem might be called self-absorbed — but isn’t that part of normal adolescence?

This is a true story.

Imagine that you are at a Wal-Mart around midnight. Dark parking lot. Little security and yet a number of random people wandering around. A man with a little boy thrown over his shoulder passes you. The little boy is screaming and kicking and crying and yelling for his mama.

The man slaps and spanks the boy and is telling him to shut up. He never uses the boy’s name. There is no woman near them and the man is moving faster. Also, imagine the boy is blond and the man has dark hair. Onlookers shake their heads but do nothing.

What would you do? Would you watch and not do anything? Or would you intervene? Social psychologists tell us there is a very good likelihood we will do nothing.

But this is the story of a woman, Pam, who did.

It’s impossible to write a blog post about mental illness without confronting the violence that has descended on this country all too often. Too many innocent victims have fallen at the hands of too many offenders to set the issue aside.

My heart bleeds for the victims lost and the loved ones remaining. Nothing written can take away the pain of the survivors. But a call to action may help to prevent such crimes from continuing.

The offenders in these incidents are often troubled and plagued by recurrent mental illness. The tragedy begins when our mental health system fails these individuals and their families as they seek help that is sometimes unavailable.

It is increasingly apparent that the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy has ripped open a deep wound in the American heart — particularly for parents of kids with mental health challenges.

Unlike the aftermath of other, similar tragedies, it seems that no amount of conversation, in person or online, helps ease the pain we’re feeling about the events in Newtown, Conn. on Dec. 14, 2012.

No doubt part of our shock and sorrow has to do with the ages of those gunned down, and the accumulated trauma from the sheer number of previous school shootings. But I believe there’s much more going on here. The children who died as a result of Adam Lanza’s bullets and his apparent mental illness may not have been our own flesh and blood, but the agony of saying goodbye to them has become a shared experience filled with equal parts grief and survivors’ guilt.

“I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things.”

Those words were not written by Adam Lanza, but another school shooter, Eric Harris, whose life was also wrought with themes of alienation and social awkwardness. Eric Harris, a Columbine shooter, compiled journal entries that pulsate with narcissistic rage and reveal a tendency to rely upon the psychological strategy of splitting: separating the world into black or white, weak or strong, good or bad, me or them.

Splitting can be seen in certain personality disorders and might also be used by some to justify bullying someone, starting a militia or cult, deciding to home-school a child, maintaining a survivalist mentality or even getting a divorce. Extreme cases of splitting can even contribute to rationalizing suicide or murder.

After the tragic shooting in Newtown Connecticut last Friday, many have good reason to feel anguish, despair and misery.

These events touched many families personally. For those of us not directly affected, they can still leave us with feelings of horror and wanting to hold our loved ones near.

As a nation and as individuals, we could not possibly have anticipated or planned to have to deal with the emotional consequences of such an event. And yet here we are… many of us saddened, enraged and overwhelmed.

In rearing my kids I always told them that ‘hate’ is a strong word. Don’t use it lightly, I advised. Don’t say, “I hate this tuna casserole!” Instead say, “Gee Mom, I strongly dislike this tuna casserole. Could I have a hot dog?” Save ‘hate’ for when ‘hate’ is the only word that can describe how you feel, when it counts.

I hate so much of what has happened recently.

I hate the senseless loss of the innocents. I hate the loss of good people who cared for the innocents.

From there it gets a little murky.

I hate that I have to separate myself from this tragedy in order to survive it. This is happening to them, not to me. I am safe, my children are safe.

Isn’t anywhere safe anymore?

You can send your kids off to the movies — and they may get shot. Or they might go to hang out at the mall — and risk getting shot. Or to high school or college — where they might get shot. Kids get kidnapped on their way home from school and abducted out of their beds.

Now 20 first graders have been gunned down in their first grade classrooms.

In the last few years, our national sense of safety has been repeatedly shaken. We can’t take it for granted that when innocent kids do innocent, everyday things, they will risk nothing more than a belly ache from eating too much popcorn or an argument with a friend.

I learned of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School today as many of my fellow Americans did. Just through the door from a toddler gym class with my daughter, I scrolled through my Facebook feed to see a flood of posts like this:

“Deeply saddened and shocked. I have no words.”

“Heartbroken.”

“My heart goes out to the families.”

Nearly my entire feed – filled with friends and contacts from around the world – was posting about the same event.

Several years ago, I might have been confused but this isn’t the first horrible event I’ve learned about in this way. Like many of us, I’ve become somewhat accustomed to hearing such news first through social networking venues. I respond by immediately checking trusted news sources or calling a loved one. Social media has a unique way of bringing us back to so many original habits and behaviors.

As the day progressed, the steady flow of Sandy Hook statuses continued. Most statuses focused on the sheer sadness, grief, and immeasurable loss associated with losing so many precious lives.

At times like these, we all search for meaning. We all look to make sense of tragedy. We need to put it into some organized containers, because otherwise it just becomes too overwhelming.

This time, the shooting involved not random people in a movie theater, or young adults on a college campus who unfortunately were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This time, the shooting involved 20 elementary school-aged children. At school. As well as another 6 or 7 adults.

To even begin to wrap your mind around it causes most of us emotional pain and anguish.

In short, how do we make sense of such tragedy?