( CNN ) -- In the wake of last week 's tragedy in Newtown , I have been asked a million questions about gun control . I 've seen pictures of the weapon the killer used . I 've heard stories about the number of bullets in the clip and the number of guns in his mother 's home . I 've even heard politicians argue that school officials should be armed with semiautomatic weapons . I 've also heard about mental health . We should be careful not to blame the mentally ill for all crimes . But we should also be prepared to accept that we might be able to prevent some tragedies if we did a better job of caring for them . I 've seen mental health illness in children , and our system is ill-equipped to handle it . I 've seen families struggle with it . One of my greatest frustrations with clinical practice is that there are far too many times when I lack the tools necessary to care for children who need help . It 's relatively easy to cure an infection or an acute physical ailment . It 's so much harder to take a mental health issue . There are rarely pills that will do the job . Even when they are , they almost never work perfectly to eradicate the problem . Opinion : On gun control , two places to start . Studies show that more than 10 % of children in the United States might benefit from some sort of mental health treatment . Most do n't get it . We often do n't have the research to tell us how best to care for these problems . Even when we do , we often lack the capacity . There is a shortage of resources and services available to serve children . Furthermore , even when those resources exist , a lack of coordination often prevents they 're being used effectively . It does n't help that the upcoming fiscal cliff will likely cut National Institutes of Health research funding by $ 2.4 billion . That would mean 2,300 fewer grants in the coming year , which represents about 25 % of grants that might otherwise be offered . It does n't help that we keep talking about cuts to services such as Medicaid and the Children 's Health Insurance Program , which cover the health care for about one in every three children in the United States . If a child is actively suicidal or homicidal , an emergency room can spring into action and admit him or her for inpatient care . But that 's often all inpatient care will do . Once a child is no longer actively threatening harm to himself or others , he or she will be released . That 's what the hospital system does . It cares for the acute problem , leaving the long term , and often much harder , work to a system ill-equipped to handle it . Opinion : Mourn ... and take action on guns . It 's natural to try and blame poor parenting when kids do n't turn out as well as we 'd hope . And , certainly , in many instances such parenting can lead to a misbehaving child , or even a child we do n't necessarily like . But mental illness really does exist , and a lot of it ca n't be cured by good parenting and is n't caused by bad parenting . We do n't have a good system for dealing with it . I want to stress that I do n't think that all violence is associated with mental illness . In fact , it 's quite the opposite . But the problems with guns and injuries go so far beyond school shootings , and a lot of that is amenable to a more focused health care system . Opinion : Predicting mass killings impossible . One of the things I do as a pediatrician is `` anticipatory guidance . '' We ask questions about issues that have not yet occurred but might occur in the future . A lot of anticipatory guidance focuses on injury prevention . We might ask about bike helmets , or swimming , or fire alarms in the house . I even ask about guns in the home . I do n't ask this question because I 'm eager to lecture patients or parents on the morality of owning guns , or the rights of individuals under the Second Amendment . I 'm asking because I 'm trying to prevent injury or death . The No . 3 killer of children age 10-14 is suicide ; the fourth is homicide . The No . 2 killer of children age 15-19 is homicide ; No . 3 is suicide . Opinion : In school shootings , patterns and warning signs . I have been trained to ask parents if they have a gun in the home . If they do , I ask how it 's stored . I strongly recommend that they keep it unloaded , locked up , and that they store the bullets separately . I do this because guns are part of almost 85 % of homicides and more than 45 % of suicides in kids 5 to 19 years old . This does n't even account for injuries not resulting in death . Yet recent laws have attempted to stop pediatricians from doing even this . I do n't know what the best outcome is from a tragedy like this . I imagine much of the focus will be on banning the weapon used or on limiting the number of bullets that could be fired without reloading . I think that 's somewhat missing the point . The vast majority of injuries or deaths due to guns are carried out on a small scale . While what happened in Newtown is a horrific occurrence , it represents the exception , not the norm , with respect to gun violence in the United States . While I welcome the opportunity for us to address the problem , I hope we focus on how we might best help all our children , not just those who make the national news . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Aaron E. Carroll .
Aaron Carrroll : We might be able to prevent tragedies if we did better job treating mental illness . Comment: He says emergency rooms treat acute instances , but system ill-equipped for long-term treatment . At checkups , he asks parents if guns are in house , but recent laws have tried to stop even this .