CHARLESTON – Addressing recent gun violence in New York and Texas, Gov. Jim Justice said Tuesday a national, comprehensive approach to dealing with all the aspects that lead to violent gun acts needs to be addressed versus small steps, such as raising the age to purchase guns.

Justice addressed the issue of gun violence during his virtual press briefing Tuesday morning from the State Capitol, his first appearance in a week since being treated for Lyme Disease after a tick bite.

“There’s no word; there is no adjective that can possibly describe it. The tragedy is off the chart,” Justice said.

An 18-year-old gunman killed 21 people, including 19 children, at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, last week. The attack followed a mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., where a young gunman killed 10 people at a grocery store in a black neighborhood.

The two incidents are not related and one didn’t inspire the other, but both involved the use of AR-15 rifles, popular for their military-like appearance.

The shootings have reopened the controversial topic of gun control in the U.S. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators is working to find agreement on a bill that can reach the 60 votes needed to be put up for debate. And the U.S. House of Representatives is pushing several bills, including raising the age for purchasing semi-automatic rifles similar to the AR-15, clamping down on access to high-capacity magazines, setting requirements for storage of firearms and other regulations.

Justice said he understood the reaction by those outraged by the mass shootings to do something, including an assault weapons ban. But Justice, a known avid sportsman and hunter, said short-term solutions would not solve the underlying societal issues that lead to these shootings.

“Think how things were in America 50 years ago and have we regressed or gotten better. I think in most people’s eyes, we’d have to say we regressed from the standpoint of crime and all the problems with mental health and all the different things that are going on across our country, it’s just not good,” Justice said. “Are things going to get better? They’re not going to get better until we take a comprehensive all-in approach to what is going on.”

Justice raised a number of societal issues affecting teenage and young men, including greater access to pornography, violent video games, and use of profanity.

“We really expect some way and somehow that our youngest are going to be able to grow up and they’ll be good citizens and we won’t have situations like this. You’re just plain kidding yourself,” Justice said. “Until we’re really willing to use good logic and good sense, these tragedies will continue.”

According to a review by CBS News of data from the RAND Corp. and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, West Virginia ranked 41st in the nation for firearms licenses, with more than 50,000 licenses in 2021 and 58.5 percent of residents owning guns.

The most recent mass shooting in Texas moved Mark Brennan, bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, to issue a statement last week calling on elected officials in the state to take action. In media appearances, Brennan went further and called for Justice to call a special session to address gun violence.

When asked for a specific public policy idea he would support, Justice said he believed the age to purchase an assault-style weapon such as an AR-15 should be raised to 21. Justice said he wasn’t afraid of any political ramifications of offering such a proposal, but he did not express any intentions to call lawmakers back to Charleston to pass such a bill.

“Taking an aspirin for cancer is not going to cure anything,” Justice said. “This situation is so complex, it’s unbelievable. People are not going to do anything about it until we address the whole.”

Jeff Sandy, cabinet secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said the state’s prevention resource officer program provided armed police officers in public schools. A partnership with the FBI also provides training to West Virginia school teachers on what to do during an active shooter situation.

Sandy also encouraged West Virginians with suspicions about someone considering committing a similar mass shooting to call 911 or the West Virginia Safe Schools Helpline at 866-723-3982 or email safeschools@wv.gov.

“I’d like to assure the West Virginia citizens and our federal partners are doing everything possible to ensure that our schools are safe,” Sandy said. “That number is managed 24 hours per day, seven days per week, by the Department of Homeland Security and the Division of Emergency Management.”