[livius]

Some of them, such as the Sandy Hook killer, also had guns provided by family members (who could pass background checks) or they bought them illegally. The Odessa shooter bought a “homemade” AK47 type weapon, assembled from parts by a man who just sold to anyone who knew about him and could pay his price.

Background checks are good, but there are many ways around them.

However, the keyword should be “crazy,” and children and adults who have been diagnosed with some disorder should certainly be on a watchlist, and so should their close family members. Too many good, innocent people have died at the hands of lunatics.

If they apply for a permit, go and interview them and their family members. The nutcase in Sandy Hook was being protected by his mother, although of course she was the one he killed first. Her (divorced) husband had tried to get treatment for the boy, but she refused. So if the killer’s father had been interviewed when his wife purchased guns, that may have given a different outcome.

Of course, the best thing would be mandatory hospitalization, something we used to have, but that was dropped in the 70s because of the leftist theory that the only sane people were the insane, because they were reacting to capitalism and rejecting US culture. Believe it or not, this was a theme, and it got everything from panhandling and vagrancy laws to potentially long-term mental hospital commitment overturned.

Naturally, the important thing in the US is to control who is in charge of this, sets the standards, and enforces it. Otherwise the Dems would declare that anybody who doesn’t vote Dem is certifiable...

So my feeling is that there are many other issues that need to be dealt with first.

[Mozzafiato]

It seems to me a lot of these mass murderers were drug addicts or users, prescription or otherwise. So, they are committing felonies simply by answering “No” to the drug question on the federal application form.

[imardmd1]

A high percentage of mass shooters are on prescribed psychoactive drugs (like Prozac SSRI or Adderall amphetamines). Pondering on this, I came to see that it is not well understood that what happens is this:

The person's mental state is potentially dangerous enough that her/she (mostly he) ought to be sequestered in an institution, that even so, without medication they cannot carry through a logical plan of action needed to commit a mass attack, so they don't. BUT if the medication enables them to carry a plan through, the medicine DOESN'T cure the anger or maniacal tendencies, it just enables them to organize their thoughts well enough to carry the murderous plan through!

SO, what that means is that giving the medication does enable a person to live without being institutionalized, but instead it does enable those with a crazy impulse to carry it through, when being locked up would have prevented it. And therefore them being loose as disruptive menaces makes the general culture unpredicatble, sometimes to the extent of individual violence--or even mass murder--arising from unrestrained pathological grievances.

Got that??

[TokarevM57]

...”Some of them, such as the Sandy Hook killer, also had guns provided by family members (who could pass background checks) or they bought them illegally.”...ouch.... if I remember correctly, Adam Lanza, the nutcake in this sad scenario, killed his own mother and took her gun(s) and went on this mad killing spree....provided...?

[MileHi]

Some of them, such as the Sandy Hook killer, also had guns provided by family members

Really? You think people should have a "permit" from the government to get a firearm? And part of the process should involve interviewing family members. Really?

[familyop]

"If they apply for a permit, go and interview them and their family members. The nutcase in Sandy Hook was being protected by his mother, although of course she was the one he killed first. Her (divorced) husband had tried to get treatment for the boy, but she refused. So if the killer’s father had been interviewed when his wife purchased guns, that may have given a different outcome."

The mother and father had way too much income for anyone to be allowed to give the boy any kind of record that would have prohibited him from possessing weapons. Universal background checks and red flag laws will certainly accommodate such families, same as restraining order laws and other laws have. Same for Jokerboy and several of the others. Most of them were recently juveniles anyway, so records wouldn't follow them.

Another effect of such laws will be that even more people will avoid mental evaluations and treatments. In my opinion, we need to build insane asylums for the hysterical hens who want such laws passed. And as a preventative measure to protect our nation, repeal the 19th Amendment.

Dict.org
http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict2&Database=*&Query=hysteria
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :

Hysteria \Hys*te”ri*a\, n. [NL.: cf. F. hyst[’e]rie. See
Hysteric.] (Med.)
A nervous affection, occurring almost exclusively in women,
in which the emotional and reflex excitability is
exaggerated, and the will power correspondingly diminished,
so that the patient loses control over the emotions, becomes
the victim of imaginary sensations, and often falls into
paroxism or fits.
[1913 Webster]

Note: The chief symptoms are convulsive, tossing movements of
the limbs and head, uncontrollable crying and laughing,
and a choking sensation as if a ball were lodged in the
throat. The affection presents the most varied
symptoms, often simulating those of the gravest
diseases, but generally curable by mental treatment
alone. Hysteric

[gundog]

I thought the Odessa shooter used the dreaded AR-15.