a poor mental health system is the major killer. my wife is a therapist so I hear about it first hand all the time. any time there are budget constraints on government, whether it be local, state or federal, the very first thing that gets cut is funding for mental health. As a result of this, people who were previously working with a social worker or seeing a therapist or, worst of all, being medicated for mental health issues, get thrown out of the system. Once this happens, they go unchecked, unmedicated and unmanaged and very often terrible things happen as a result. we can go back and forth debating whether we should allow this gun or this magazine or whatever, and there are good arguments and points from both sides, but there is no arguing that mass shootings are carried out by white men in their early twenties. this is when the onset of serious mental health issues begin and, unfortunately, also is the first time that most people are experiencing freedom and self-reliance for the first time. This enables many of these people to fall through the cracks, especially those who are paranoid and do their best to stay out of the eye of society.
I guess the only exception I can think of off the top of my head was the DC sniper guys and theirs was spread out over a few weeks. Other than them it's always been young white dudes. Correct me if I'm wrong........ha ha.....like I needed to tell you that.
IMO it really is a societal (yes, you spelled it correctly) problem. While we are having all these budget discussion in the coming months we need to decide what our priorities are. While I probably lean a little to the other side of the gun conversation than most of you guys as it pertains to high capacity magazines and automatic weapons, like I said before, there are good arguments to be made for both sides and as a gun owner, hunter and father I can appreciate them both. That being said, while we have a larger national debate about those most controversial issues, we should all be able to recognize that ensuring the mentally ill are being attended to, even when it isn't politically convenient, has to be a priority. I truly believe that a fully funded and functioning mental health system could have done more to prevent these tragedies than preventing any particular gun. Here is the problem: When the economy gets slow and times get tough, the first thing that gets cut out of budgets on every level is funding for mental health because it is considered discretionary spending. In other words, it is not a priority. Both parties do this with impunity so the blame falls equally. I haven't done so yet, but I am willing to bet if you look back at the history of mass shootings you will find that the majority of them have occurred during times of economic downturn. For the past several years I have witnessed cut after cut to the mental health system, an attempt to privatize mental health that has gone terrible wrong and in fact has made the situation worse, and the closing of mental health facilities everywhere. I'm not saying it would stop everything but it could go a long way toward stopping these mass shootings that are being conducted by mentally ill individuals. These shootings will only get worse in the years to come because we currently have veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan who are not getting the mental health services that they need and deserve. The conditions are absolutely ripe: battle hardened soldiers who have spent the last 3-5 years killing bad guys who return home and are told to assimilate back into society and play nice. It's already happened once but it was in Afghanistan when that soldier went on the shooting spree in the middle of the night, not here in the US. If we do not make mental health attention a priority, it will happen here sooner rather than later.
