>>>In his case, he was kicked out of college and told not to come back until he had a psychiatrist's evaluation. There were other warning signs too.
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>>Such as, owning a 33-round magazine for a Glock pistol? :-/
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>>The Canadian handgun magazine capacity limit is 10 rounds: http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/faq/index-eng.htm#a6
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>As much as people get hung up on "assault weapons", magazine sizes etc. a gym bag with three glocks with 10 rounds each pretty much gets around that. And it takes about 2 seconds to swap a mag in a Glock even if you're not very good at it. It would also require confiscating all the high capacity mags currently out there and somehow preventing the taping together two mags for a quick flip as anybody who played run-through-the-jungle in the old days can tell you can pretty much compensate for limited capicity in the currently locked clip. (in a should weapon like an AK)

There are enough guns in circulation in Canada, let alone the US, that trying to limit the damage they can do becomes a matter of statistics. You can say, "If 33 round mags are illegal, only criminals will own them". That is, by definition 100% true, and implies that criminals will still use 33-round mags. But, I'd like to think making them illegal means John Q. Public Enemy will, on average, have a slightly harder time getting hold of one. That, in turn means he will, on average, spray fewer rounds during the average crime. When spread across enough criminals and enough guns I'd like to think there'd be a positive effect.

I agree that it may have no significant effect on any individual crime - perhaps especially the case in hand - if the perp is skilled and determined. But they often are not skilled and determined. Make it harder for them - make them lay out the cash for 3 guns instead of just 1, make them learn the taping mags together trick. It may not stop them, but on average it'll slow them down a little bit.

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> Ammo restrictions are more feasible - especially teflon loads meant to pierce kevlar.
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>Pre-emptive identification of the nut-cases (who are seldom shy about letting their freak flag fly) seems a more realistic approach than trying to child-proof the world keep everyone away from sharp objects.

Well, yes, that's the holy grail. And it's another thing which, statistically, is a very worthy thing to do. But it can't be easy, or else it would already be done.

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>(also wouldn't hurt to have more good-guys prepared to intervene when a nut-job shows up assuming he's the only one armed and dangerous in the zone. Cops make a lot of enemies, but you don't see a lot of people going in to shoot up cop bars. I'd bet if that had been an NRA rally he would not have got that many shots off... or been taken alive.)

Something new to me, it seems being in a real, high-stress situation can compromise even the best-trained people who have not been in such a situation. Aside from the psychological factors, apparently you lose fine motor skills so you get cases of people forgetting, or being unable to release manual safeties from their weapons. I don't know the average makeup of an NRA rally, but those members who hadn't been in a live-fire situation up to that point might not be of much use even if armed.