Shooting at CT elementary school leaves at least 27 dead, 18 of them children

[rejectamenta]

Extraordinarily sad, but in no way shocking.. the routine nature of these atrocities makes it harder and harder to respond with anything but cynicism anymore.

[rejectamenta]

Why is it most liberals seem to focus on gun control, and gloss over better mental health treatment, as the most effective solution to this problem?   They seem to hardly even mention it.  

Because nobody - literally nobody - knows what that would even mean.

Making sure people have access to affordable, efficient psychiatric care is part of the puzzle, but it's a small part. I don't know why it's suddenly been christened the silver bullet in massacre prevention, and as you said, nobody can seem to outline specifics beyond "make mental health services better!"

We're doing ourselves a disservice by thinking these killings are only perpetrated by generically and predictably insane people.

[rejectamenta]

You don't think it's a little too easy to label all spree killers undiagnosed head cases? I agree that proper health care would've impacted the outcome of Newtown and V-Tech more heavily than gun control, but what about Aurora, the Amish school shooting, Columbine, and even the OKC bombings? Those were all carried out by people of varying mental states, but none severe enough to suggest a potential problem down the road without heaping doses of hindsight.

I didn't mean to suggest that gun control was the catch-all solution either, or that psychiatric services were insignificant. It's a multi-faceted problem, perhaps largely cultural, and trivializing it by clinging to one aspect or the other as the Eureka moment isn't going to stop the next guy.