re: #121 Obdicut

Doesn’t matter. Listen to what the actual researchers say: There’s no way we could create a good predictive criteria for people doing this. For every one person who does, there’ll be a thousand, ten thousand more who fit the profile.

The way to deeply address it would be to embark on a gigantic, huge, massive campaign to really overhaul mental health in this country in every way, which would require vast amounts of spending, socialized mental health insurance— and, really, single-payer down the line, since mental health can’t be separated out.

None of the GOP assholes now bloviating about mental health would be willing to actually spend enough and do enough to address the root causes. They just want some magic ‘killer detector’ that we can pass kids through.

Well, heck. One of the root causes of these rampages is the easy availability of large-magazine rifles.

That has a technical fix.

Another is that stolen weapons work for the thief. That, too, has a technical fix. Weapons can be made in such a way that they don’t work except for the owner. Or at least, if fired by someone other than the owner they call 911 all on their own. Or something.

But there are people who had jolly well been identified as dangerous before they went on their rampage, and the authorities said yes, we know, but our hands are tied. He hasn’t done anything that would justify us stepping in.

It wouldn’t take a massive overhaul of the whole system to adjust the rules here in the direction of earlier intervention. That intervention might take the form of treatment, or offers of treatment. Or it might take the form of seeing to it that the guy doesn’t have easy access to guns.

If the odds of somebody going postal are 1 in 1000, that’s actually way, way higher than it is for the general population. That’s information.