We can't fix U.S. gun violence until we address the psychosis at the heart of mass gun ownership.

What happened on Thursday was incredibly tragic. So, again, we'll have thousands and thousands of journalists compete to offer "hot takes" on quick fixes to the gun violence problem in America. We'll depressingly compare statistics from the United States and the United Kingdom -- wistfully dreaming of a society where infants are less frequently shot in the chest or left without parents before turning a single year old.

Guns suck and it's horrible that American civilians own almost half the civilian firearms in the entire world.

But, let's be honest, getting rid of 300 million guns would be an impossible task. Australia probably succeeded in its gun buy-back program, because it is a country with a population smaller than California and just a little bit bigger than New York State.

So, instead of thinking about how we can take guns away from people -- FYI: if I were dictator, I would confiscate all civilian guns -- we should probably, instead, think about how we can work to diminish the insane appetite (i.e. demand) for guns in this country.

And what is driving that appetite? Why do Americans respond to mass shootings with buying even more guns?

Candi Kinney of Roseburg Gun Shop has just ordered more assault rifles. 'Always a rush after a big shooting.'pic.twitter.com/mVPWgGkgR3

— Rory Carroll (@rorycarroll72) October 2, 2015

Well, I'm going to submit here that it is pretty much a psychosis -- it is pathological.

And what is driving this pathology? What is driving the proliferation of a crazy, unreasonable mindset that one needs to own multiple weapons of war to protect him- or herself and one's family?

It's pretty simple. POTUS has explained it before:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.

And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

The United States is an incredibly exceptional nation: Americans -- in particular, the huge majority of Americans barely clinging to market incomes that allow them to live so-called middle-class lives -- are exceptionally insecure. They have no health care security -- every visit to the doctor or hospital is a surprise bill. They have no labor security -- every worker bee is one day away from training his or her replacement. They have no ability to trust that their kids will be guaranteed a college education -- without crippling debt. Their media and government routinely terrifies them about terrorism -- why we do we need a Department of Homeland Security? And they lack physical security -- how do you think parents feel after they read about things like this happening in the capital of our nation? Americans are incredibly insecure -- they live in fear of deprivation: deprivation of health, deprivation of income, deprivation of education, deprivation of life.

So, some Americans respond to these legitimate fears by turning to guns, hatred and violence.

Now, let's be honest: is this reasonable? Of course not! Americans are about as likely to be killed in a car accident as they are attacked on a city street, and much more likely to be killed in a car accident than they are blown up by a terrorist bomb.

Nevertheless, human beings are highly-evolved animals and, as such, we're not always reasonable. Some of us will respond to the horrific insecurity of modern American life by developing an absurd psychosis. And some of us, regrettably, will respond to this psychosis by buying guns, especially when powerful institutions, like the NRA, take glee in satisfying the demand for guns perpetuated by the aforementioned psychosis.

So, yes, we should try to find a compromise path to better regulating guns. Here's a good argument for that.

But, if we really want to reduce the staggering amount of gun violence in American public (and private!) life, we must deal with the rampant economic, physical and social insecurity at the heart of the psychosis that drives so many presumably "nice" Americans to feel the need to buy lots and lots of guns -- and, sometimes, to use those guns to kill other people.

We need a better welfare state, we need universal health care, we need cities that promote social inclusion through housing policy rather than social exclusion through gentrification and red-lining, we need less income inequality and resentment that it breeds, we need a more humane, caring society -- one in which not everyone, but more people, can feel secure in their futures.

Let's do instant background checks, let's end the crazy loophole at gun shows, but let's also be honest about the deeply-problematic environmental conditions facilitating gun violence in everyday American life.

At the heart of America's crazy gun culture is a crazy amount of insecurity -- if you're serious about fixing gun violence, you'll also be serious about fixing this multi-dimensional insecurity.