Quote:
Originally Posted by Sarah_W
I, for one, would not suggest that mental illness is representative of all mass shooters. There are more than one assignable cause for why someone would kill a group of people.
In no particular order here are some I can think of.
1. Mental illness
2. Hatred of a group of people (Race, Religion, and other characteristics)
3. Hatred or anger of a person within a group in attendance of an event
4. Copy cat killer
5. Political enemy
6. Genocide
7. Revenge
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IMO, anyone who would actually kill others because of 2-7 above is mentally ill. The difference in the US is how easy it is for said person to act out their illness with mass killing weapons. The impact is orders of magnitude greater than someone who only has access to less destructive weapons, which is the case in the rest of the 1st world.
This may not be the technical definition of mentally ill, but it works for me - anyone who goes to the extreme of killing others for ANY reason (other than the immediate need for self-defense) has got a screw loose and should not be allowed to own a gun.
I gave up on any thought of actually banning guns a long time ago. I do think there is room to tighten rules around chains of ownership and liability - if good old uncle George gives little Jonny, who likes to torture animals, a gun for his birthday he shares liability for whatever Jonny does with it.