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Is it the over abundance if guns or the lack of accessible mental health care? Reasons for mass shootings are more complex than 'take the guns away'. That's

• hga 11y ago
  It also requires a willingness to lock up dangerous people, with two very clear cut cases of the Colorado movie theater and Virginia Tech killers. The former so alarmed his university psychiatrist that she alerted the school authorities (as I recall, she was also on the responsible committee), but they dropped the issue when he withdrew a few weeks before the shooting. In the latter, a state judge order the shooter to get outpatient treatment, but the state dropped the ball in seeing that that happened or reporting it to the Feds to put him on the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which would have prevented him from buying his guns. The flip side is that while mental illness is not surprisingly strongly correlated with mass shooters, the reverse is not true, the vast majority of the mentally ill are not a danger to anyone but themselves.
  • nickthemagicman 11y ago
    Right there's a bunch of reasons. I hate guns myself but feel like the war chant of 'take der guns' is a knee jerk reaction based on absolutely no science.