>>>>>It was the gun that made him kill children. Remember - the gun is to blame.
>>>>
>>>>No, but it was the guns that made him able to kill 20 children so quickly. Yes, he might have arrived with other weapons if he'd had no guns, but it's unlikely that he would have killed so many before the police arrived.
>>>>
>>>>I acknowledge that someone determined to kill is likely to find a way to do so. Can you at least acknowledge that guns provide an easier way than almost anything else?
>>>>
>>>>Tamar
>>>
>>>When a drunk driver hits a bus full of children and kills and injures many, the focus is on preventing drunks from getting behind the wheels and not banning the automobiles.
>>>
>>>When Timothy McVey loaded the truck with fertilizer and killed more than 100 innocent people, the focus was not on banning fertilizer and trucks.
>>>
>>>The question is how to prevent the crazies like this guy in Newtown from getting his hands on the guns or cars or whatever other means they may find to kill innocent people. His mother, according to the news, was a “big, big fan” of guns and purchased them legally. And she took her kids to the firing range quite often (according to the news article I read today).
>>>And the crazy guy was probably played violent video games. If this crazy 20 yo was a son a cop and took the gun from his father and perpetrated the same kind of crime, would we hear the calls for banning the guns just as much as we hear today?
>>>
>>>There are already enough guns sold that even if you stop the sale of all guns at his point, the crazies will still have the opportunity to find some. The focus – IMHO – should be on how to “spot” these crazies before they strike.
>>
>>I think we need a two-pronged approach here. There are some weapons that simply don't belong in private hands. While we may disagree about what weapons those are, I'm pretty sure we agree that the statement is true. We need to discuss what that list is and then make sure the laws support out society agreement on that list.
>>
>>Second, we absolutely need to improve our approach to mental health in this country. We need to make it possible for people to get help when they need it. (In particular, since people with mental illnesses can have trouble holding down a job, we need to make sure that money does not prevent them from being treated.) We also need to reexamine the question of how to deal with an adult with a mental illness who doesn't want to be treated.
>>
>>One of the saddest pieces I've read in the last couple of days is this one:
>>http://anarchistsoccermom.blogspot.com/2012/12/thinking-unthinkable.html
>>
>>Tamar
>
>I agree with you about the need to improve the approach on mental health in this country. But I suspect that most of the energy and focus will be spent on weapons. 99.99% of what I read online and hear on tv news is about weapons.

Dmitri,

Its very simple, You can't ban mental illness out of society, you can ban guns out of our society so that mental ill people cannot misuse them. This does not mean that both do not have to be addressed.

Walter,