Mass Shootings are A Cultural Problem We Created

let's start with the obvious and get the guns out of the crazies and make it a bit harder for them to acquire. If that means the majority of non-crazy gun owners have to wait an additional week due to a background check or put their name in a database, so be it. Don't give me any "but then the government know's who to go after for their guns". They can do that already dolts and if privacy is so important to you, start by throwing away your cell phone, alexa dot, echo, gps, etc, etc.

Let's invest in our miserable mental health institutions. It's unacceptable that as the greatest country in the world we collectively shrug our shoulders on how to better care for and address this problem.

Culturally invest in the family and your community. Start by quit acting like because your neighbor voted for someone else they are the devil incarnate.

Demand pragmatic, collaborative solutions from our representatives. There is no silver bullet solution, but there are immediate steps we can take if someone with some ba**s gets to work.

Until then, you know what you can do with your worthless thoughts and prayers.

You sound very ignorant.

One of the few times you and I agree. You will get the rabid anti-gun people telling you that it is the guns causing the mass shootings, which again, takes all accountability away from the humans that pull the trigger. The guns are not the problem. It is the participation trophy, don't hurt my feelings, my child is an angel people who have created this. But they are the ones who will continue to perpetuate this culture because it is easier than correcting their children and making them responsible for their own actions.

btw Yantis - video games and their popularity is not a uniquely American phenomenon, while we seem to have a few more of these shootings than elsewhere. I wonder what the variable is.......

Thank you, Yantis Green! You have hit the nail right on the head and hammered it in in one blow! Since the breakdown of the American family, since removing God from schools, since shaming people into not using corporal punishment for children, you can go back and look at the statistics. 30 years ago, we did not have this problem. Then, along came more welfare, less need for a 2 parent family, more need for "electronic babysitters," less discipline, more "bribing" children to do what we want, less personal responsibility as parents and failure to instill that personal responsibility in the children, more of parents turning over education of children to the State, less parents taking time to instruct and guide their children, more "feel good about yourself" society and less God.

Obviously guns are a problem if someone who can't legally walk into a store and buy a 6 pack of beer can walk into a gun shop and purchase an AR 15. What could a 19 year old possibly need that type of gun for? Blaming welfare, poverty, video games and single parents for these horrific crimes is ridiculous! Behind every cocky, "I'm better than you" person is a sociopath family member. Be careful what you speak on, just because you aren't on welfare or happen to have 2 parents doesn't mean your child/family can't have anger issues and feel the need to shoot up a place just because the guns are there. I bet half of you agreeing with this fool have guns in your own homes where your children stay! It should not be this easy to purchase a gun! I bet if something like this happened to you or your kids life was taken by someone with a gun, you wouldn't be so quick to say gun laws aren't a problem. You would all be singing a different tune! This whole article was unnecessary gibberish.

Dear Lord, common sense at last!
Mentally deranged people want their five minutes of fame so now you wonder how many he encouraged to run up a higher body count. Heinlein said that an armed society is a polite society and we're simply seeing the other side of how gun free zones are kill-me-first zones.
Another option for the gun haters is to get VERY serious about non lethal methods of handling an active shooter besides locking the doors and hiding. Getting hit with a bean bag round or rubber slug come to mind. I once saw a fella hit by a tennis ball launcher which completely knocked him off his feet.
Deny those five minutes of fame at all cost because the cost is too high.

Wow, that's rich, a lecture on morals from a thief and ex con. Can you even own a gun Yantis?

Good article to start the discussion. Think a deeper look at the evidence is needed. You are correct that guns, in themselves, are not the source of the problems. Mass murder and random killing don't need guns. For example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Land_fire . 87 people killed with $1 worth of gas.

Looking around the world, there are several countries with the same addiction to violent media and video games and yet the number of shooting sprees doesn't track the popularity of the games, media, etc.. One item that does seem to track the violence is the rate of legal use of mood altering drugs. We in the USA are the largest market for antidepressants. We push powerful drugs like Ritalin and Aderall to calm them down in class. Drugs that are often forced on students by school officials with little to no training. One place to start finding answers are well researched books such as https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Epidemic-Psychiatric-Astonishing-inAmerica-ebook/dp/B0036S4EGE

What we have is an American gun fetish problem.

Manifests itself in entertainment and the 'ever terrible' video game; empowers our under-trained police force; and culturally creates a group of mental gymnasts who continually leap over the obvious and tumble to ridiculous straw-man examples. It's idiotic to respond to the topic of gun control with "well the crazy will just find another weapon, like a knife or a bomb" to kill you with so what can you do, or "let's arm everyone, problem solved".

There is a level of control that takes the ability of bad people from getting weapons that make it easy for them to do a lot of damage in a small amount of time - that does not mean ripping guns from every law abiding citizen. It's not an either-or solution but a nuanced and difficult one that we should be demanding from our representatives because it involves hard, bi-partisan work and tough decisions.

But we wont.

We'll be distracted by a tweet or a celebrity pregnancy or a new chicken place opening.

And it'll happen again.

This happens to be a time that I agree with you. You should throw in the use of ADD drugs also!

But there isn't a good answer. All the meme's are right, also. What changed? The culture. When I went to High School, there were lots of guns in the parking lot, many of them in a rack in the back window. A little of each and every point made has added to the decline of values and morals that allow the country to be what it is today. I could have carried the same gun used in Florida through the halls of the same school around the same students for every day since the school has been open and the gun would not have shot anyone! While it's hard to be exact, there are somewhere over 300 million guns owned by Americans. Over 100 million of them are rifles. Conservative estimates say four to six million of those are AR-15 style rifles. If even 500 of them had been used for a mass shooting, that would be .0001% of that style gun or less than .000002% of all guns! If the weapon was the problem, we'd know. The reason a young, or old, person should have a rifle such as this is because my Constitution says, "...shall not be infringed" and that part of my country has not changed! I am positive that the problem is not that Americans can purchase and own guns, but exactly which Americans do so! If I had the answer, I'd give it to you, but I don't believe any that I've heard yet are that answer.

Last night before I went to bed I checked on all my guns to make sure they were locked up and not misbehaving. This morning I checked again including my AR and guess what .... they were still locked up and did nothing bad all night. Its not the gun people , the gun is a tool. This argument is getting old. Mental health should be what we are talking about. Yantis nailed it when he said broken homes, no discipline and electronic babysitters have ruined our youth. We have lost our way and its our own fault. 30 years ago this would have never happened because kids had respect for others (adults, coaches, teachers, law enforcement and most importantly GOD.)

...cognitive dissonance in this rant is astounding.

Your gift at understatement is what is astounding.

Psychopathy is not formulaic, nor curable by banning video games, adding a parent or shoving Jesus down every school kid's throat.

By your logic, Mr. Green, the mere visual of a gun and it's suggested use (for killing) on a video game, is enough to throw any moron off his hinges and send him firing into a public place. Kids have always enjoyed games of role play, be they "cops n'n robbers'' or the handful of violent video games I used to own, well over 30 years ago. Absolutely none of my peers (many from single parent households) became mass murderers.

I'm all for gun ownership, but how is someone's gun rack any less of a threat to a teen than playing XBOX? Furthermore, why do you see nothing wrong with Big Brother going after software companies and the film industry, yet want as little to do with them as possible, when it comes to private citizens owning firearms? I'm with you on the gun issue, I just didn't think your stance on the video games and movies was consistent with your argument on the topic.

As for the issues of drug usage and promiscuity, well again you'd be forced to accept the facts as they are, taken into context: MOST drug users and promiscuous people are not mass murders, and there are no psychological or social sciences definitively linking the aforementioned with gun violence.

We've nurtured a collective generation of ingrates with inflated senses of self-worth. Keep telling them how special they are and that anything short of celebrating their divinity is "bullying". Keep glorifying our culture of professional victims and keep a straight face when your teenage boy insists you relate to him as the "bi-curious woman'' he insists he is. This is the kind of social grooming conducive to a breeding ground for mentally fragile time bombs.

Mr. Green, I get that you don't approve of the "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll'' lifestyle, but a person bent on murder is going to be so, with or without these things.

I can't help but think that things might've gone completely different Wednesday, had the alleged shooter just stayed home and smoked a joint, while playing video games with a woman of ill repute.

Assault weapons are a problem. Society is a problem. GMO's that affect behavior are a problem. Steroids in foods that affect behavior are a problem. It doesn't take folks holding hands and praying to your gawd of choice to make people not shoot other people.

Children get killed all the time by cars. Teenagers drive and also manage to obtain alcohol.
Should we do away with cars and alcohol?
Why is it we protect our banks, jewelry stores, and movie stars better than our children?
Why is it that were are willing to spend money busing kids halfway across the state to play football but not to
protect them?
These kids on TV demanding the government to do more gun control should be asking: why has government the
failed to protect them?
Which is really more important, a half dozen assistant football coaches or 1 armed police officer at every school?
Maybe if children grew up with daily interaction with a police officer they knew was there to protect them,
we would not have the problem of so many officers being killed on the job.
We can debate why we think these kind of things happen, the real question is why we allow our children to be easy
targets instead of protecting them?