[GovernmentShrinker]

I don’t like all this focus on “How did he get a gun?” The important question is “What is wrong with our society that he hadn’t been locked up in a mental hospital years earlier?” It’s clear from his writings that he spent a lot of time thinking about violence in general, with no particular focus on guns. If he’d been barred from purchasing a gun from a dealer, and hadn’t managed to buy one off the street, he’d have used something else. There’s no law against people who’ve been adjudicated as mentally ill going out and buying gasoline and chains. He apparently did buy or otherwise obtain chains. Imagine how many people he could have killed by chaining all the exit doors to a dorm in the middle of the night and throwing gasoline-fueled firebombs through some windows. It’s not that people like him need to be kept away from guns, it’s that they need to be kept away from free society.

[Sleeping Beauty]

It’s not that people like him need to be kept away from guns, it’s that they need to be kept away from free society.

My state doesn't have money to put people mental health hospital beds more than five days max. It's a lot cheaper to put the crazies in prison (only $100,000 per year) but they have to commit a crime first.

If we want to shrink government, we gotta keep the nuts on the street.

[Jack Hammer]

Exactly correct.

[Erik Latranyi]

Government does not do its job and lock this guy up or report him to the National Instant Check System after repeated demonstrations of dangerous behavior.

-—What is the result-—

We need to restrict honest citizens from owning firearms.

[ClaireSolt]

Your expectations are really very far away from current reality. First, being suicidal is not considered a defect but a temporary condition than can be treated with drugs. Second, there are practically no institutions where mental cases are locked up long term. Although John Hinkley and Andrea Yates are locked up, Cho was released the next day, as are most mental patients who go back and forth through a revolving door of inpatient care and living on the street.

Some, like Cho, benefit from treatment enough to live normally, but the miracle of meds is vastly overrated and many cannot take care of themselves. Half of all people disabled on SSD are mentally ill. We send them a small monthly check and they are on their own, even though they are a lot worse off than Cho.

[EEDUDE]

I agree completely. The focus always seems to be about “how did he get the gun?”

I grew up with kids that ALL had access to firearms. They were much easier to get then than they are now

In high school many kids brought their shotguns to school with them and kept them in the trunks of their cars in preparation for hunting after school.

We had severe racial violence during the year after the school was integrated, but NO ONE ever considered using a gun.

In my opinion, there is something much more sinister going on, and this is what needs to be addressed.