One relevant point is that funding for treatment of mental illness has gone down significantly
http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Sectio ... uts_report
I also see a psychology abstract that talks about psychological make-up of mass murderers.
http://www.jaapl.org/content/38/1/87.full

I found it interesting that mass shootings tend to occur in small towns or the suburbs. According to the psychology abstract the "pseudocommando" is not a new phenomenon, but the ability to use powerful firearms makes recent mass murders unique. If the mass murderer is reacting to complete social rejection (and we're talking about the effects on a person with underlying pathology, of course most people who get socially rejected do not harm anyone), perhaps the effects of social cliques have a more pervasive influence in essentially closed-off small towns and suburbs, whereas in large cities people can find at least some small groups where they can gain acceptance..
Apart from putting restrictions on guns, we might also take a look at more funding for treatment of mental illness and identification of isolated kids who have mental issues.

This is one thing that I would FULLY agree with Freeman2 on. The mental illness treatment system is horrid. Unfortunately, I learned a great deal about this subject this summer. I would love to see the budget reduced in so many other areas, and some of the savings be put into treatments, checkups and inpatient/outpatient facilities.

I would also call for law changes that would make it easier to hold a person for mental illness checkups and make it easier to force treatment if person is found to be unfit.

It should be evident how important I think it is to even suggest this. You all know how much of a deficit hawk I am. For me to recommend the loosening of the budget strings should sound the alarm.

oh, Guapo, just wait till Purple sees where that link goes...

What about Al Sharpton?

I just didn't realise we had so many Birchers around here.

danivon

I read that all the way down. It is not a ban, bbauska, it's restrictions. It allowed the killer's mother to lawfully hold the semiautomatic in her home

Mrs. Lanza kept the guns to protect her family.

There is no way to look at an individual incident and build gun laws from lessons learned. There's always exceptions, hypothetical and unknowns.
Looking at whats effective on a macro scale is the only way to approach the problem.
Look at large areas that have managed to lower gun violence generally and follow their practices.
Unless there is an appetite for seizing banned guns and/or magazines ...the effects of any ban are never immediate because though they stop new purchases, there are 100 million guns in circulation.
In jurisdictions where law enforcement focuses on gun laws .... there is lower gun violence.

This is an issue of EVIL. That is what we are fighting. We are not fighting guns, or mental illness, violent video games or whatever. There are many tendrils that EVIL uses.

We can keep cutting the heads off of the hydra, but until we make gains against the root cause of the issue it will be a losing battle.

Fight evil where you are. We all need to fight and not give in. Enough is enough.

Linking to an article on TNA doesn't make me a Bircher any more than linking to Huffpo makes me a liberal. I find articles on Salon, Slate, Huffpo, TNA, and wherever else there are good ones. I'm not of the mindset that one should only read publications that fit into their ideology. I found that article to be relevant and interesting. That's all.

]bbauska

This is an issue of EVIL. That is what we are fighting. We are not fighting guns, or mental illness, violent video games or whatever. There are many tendrils that EVIL uses.

Yeah. Well an evil person with an assault weapon is deadlier than one without.
And guns that are harder to acquire are much rougher for mentally ill people to get ...
Nothing is perfect. But incremental gains can be made over time.With tougher laws and more restrictions perhaps gun violence can be cut from 100,000 deaths and injuries a year to some fraction of that daunting number.
But trying to deflect from the root cause of gun violence by blaming Evil or a lack or religion or society is just a way to avoid acknowledging that there is a direct correlation between the numbers and types of guns and gun violence.

guapo

I found that article to be relevant and interesting. That's all

The article referenced John Lotts discredited "research" a fair amount. Have you also reviewed any of the great many pieces that took apart his statistical analysis?
It also made, in its analysis of rates of gun violence, what I thought was a startling comparison between europe and white Americans.... Apparently the authors don't count violence that occurs between people of color as note worthy? How do you interpret that?

I never said one thing about religion. Atheists can fight evil just like devout Christians. My point is not to deflect from gun violence, or any other that I mentioned, but to point to the root cause.

I am sorry that you are not getting past the mode of murder to the real problem.

You didn't say anything about a lack of religion B, but lots of commmentators are taking this kind of tack.(Huckabee comes to mind) People on this board have blamed society...
Thats BS. Its a dodge. Its, tut tut, but what are ya gonna do? kind of response.
You will never eliminate EVIL from the world, or evil people.
But you can reduce the numbers of guns. Especially especially powerful, quick firing, and easily hidden weapons. And by doing so reduce the chances (not eliminate, reduce) that someone evil or insane can gain access to these weapons when the impulse strikes.
There are almost NO gun deaths in Japan. Not because there is no evil there, but because there are no guns.

How about Constitutional Literalism, only exact equivalent guns from when the Right was given, i.e. muzzle loaders?

freeman2 wrote:I saw a Johns Hopkins professor who had studied mass shootings since the 70s in the US. Her findings: (1) all or virtually all of the shooters had some mental illness, though in many instances it had not been diagnosed or treated prior to the shooting, (2) typically, the shooter made known his intent prior to the shooting, and (3) all of the shootings occurred in either small towns or suburbs (not in major cities)
60 minutes had a story where friends of the mother said she told them the shooter suffered from Asperger's Syndrome and was on medication

So, why aren't we looking at laws/means to deal with mental illness? As far as I know, that is not protected by the Bill of Rights.