Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth
David, it seems to me even more quixotic to try to eradicate all mental illness (or, if he's sane, to eradicate all the horrible life experiences that lead people to break with society) than to control guns. I agree with the goal, but it seems unachievable. Suppose we learn that he was an abuse victim. What do we do with that knowledge?
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I think you have to work both ends. Based on the facts available at this point, it seems there were no hints that this guy had any problems, which means that anything less than testing everyone for 'mental illness' genes would not have stopped him from doing 'something' evil. But on the other hand, some amount of gun control could have prevented the lethality of what he did. True, you can't stop people from committing horrific acts, but you can at least take the grenades and assault weapons out of the equation.
David is right that as a society, we tend to focus on the 'how' (symptoms) rather than the 'why' (problems). NYC reacting to children bringing guns to school by putting in metal detectors is an example that comes to mind. The problem is most likely lack of parental guidance at home, not gun control. You can't keep people from living their lives, which is what some are proposing by asking "how can we make movie theaters safer?" Fix the problem and you won't have to fix as many symptoms.