[dsk]

A psychologist once remarked that we all have at least some form of mental illness... nobody is 100% perfect. Most of the time it doesn't affect our daily function, but merely helps shape our personalities. That being said, it's hard to draw the line as to what makes someone sufficiently mentally ill that they would be considered a danger to themselves or others if they owned or had access to dangerous objects or weapons. It's just as easy to point the finger at mental illness as a cause of mass shootings as it is the legality of firearms... and both would be missing the mark. Plenty of people with mental illnesses own firearms and never hurt a soul. Plenty of others have never been considered mentally ill in their lives, and yet one day they suddenly act out on a silent urge to kill people.

The problem is far too complex to simply say we need more laws against guns or mentally ill people... unless the plan is to either ban ALL guns outright or lock up everybody who acts strange against their will. It seems the Democrats want to do the former and Republicans want to do the latter.

 

[dsk]

Many of the Parkland School Shooting parents, during their victim impact statement referred to the shooter as an "animal", which I thought was the most appropriate term, because its so true. The difference between most animals and civilized people is that we are governed by laws, culture, respect for life, religion, fear of god, karma, or whatever. Whereas many wild animals have no sense of right and wrong, often governed by raw hard-wired genetic instincts.

Except that with few exceptions wild animals don't kill out of sick pleasure. They do it to survive. When I hear of some scumbag being called an "animal" I feel it's an insult to animals everywhere.

Funny thing though, the wild animals who do sometimes kill out of anger, or jealousy, or even spite most often tend to be chimpanzees... our closest animal cousins.

 

[dsk]

Thus the problem with the mainstream news media's general definition of a mass shooting. They make no distinction between a psycho shooting random people because he's sick, and a gang banger shooting into a crowd in order to kill a rival because it's just business.

 

[dsk]

Semi automatic handguns have been around over 100 years, semiautomatic rifles over 80 years. The AR15 is about 60 years old. Guns have been around for quite a while, they really haven't changed. These "mass shootings" are a relatively new event, what's changed? If not the gun, then the people doing the actual shooting. It's the culture, the cell phone, social media, video games have all contributed to this. Way less actual face to face social interaction have left too many people socially immature, the huge uptick in suicides, particularly in our young proves something is wrong regardless of different opinions for what mental illness are. The Covid lock downs haven't helped.

Just FYI, high-capacity semi-automatic rifles have been around for well over 100 years. The Winchester Model 1907 for example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Model_1907