After the Uvalde shooting, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was quoted as saying: “It seems to me there are two broad categories that underscore the problem [of school shootings], mental illness and school safety.”

McConnell’s citing of mental illness as the primary factor in mass shootings is consistent with statements from many Republican politicians, who attribute this carnage not to easy access to guns but to widespread mental health issues in our country. What puzzles me, however, is that these “issues” appear only to affect males (mostly young), who are the ones spilling blood with firearms in the streets of our cities and towns, time after time, day after day.

Meanwhile, as our exhausted and grieving country is being turned into a shooting gallery, there is a concerted legislative and judicial effort by conservative forces to control women.

Is anyone able to explain this contradiction?

Ellen D. Murphy
Portland