Once again, a person who was a couple of French fries short of a Happy Meal has gone on a rampage and taken the lives of innocents, and injured many others. Looking at my posts, overall, I suppose one might know how serious I am by the lack of photos & graphics. There are none to be found in this post.
(I'm actually tending to find better reporting overseas than via USA mainstream media, on this and other issues.)
Notice I did not say "shooting rampage." There were guns involved, and the carnage could have been worse. But if you read the stories that have been posted, he started with a knife and stabbed 3 of his roommates to death.
He also used his BMW to ram & run over some bicyclists. He did shoot some sorority members, who were apparently the targets of his rage.
People who want to kill will find a way...
Is it perhaps his misplaced anger, social awkwardness, and sense of entitlement (I have $300 sunglasses and a BMW... you should sleep with me!) that is an issue to think about? He was angry, apparently still a virgin, and the target of his rage was attractive females.
I guess sometimes masturbation just doesn't cut it.
Let's blame them. Heaven forbid that a young lady have standards and not want to date, much less sleep with, a self-absorbed, entitled, mentally ill psychopath.
Well, first of all, there are women out there who will sleep with anyone. I guess he was just a little TOO selective or couldn't find the right gal or even a prostitute. But if you're a dorky, self-entitled prick (My dad was an associate director on "The Hunger Games"), yes, your odds of getting laid diminish.
But the issue that the "lame-stream" media is not addressing is mental health. They go straight for gun control, because it fits their agenda.
Elliot Rodger Refused His Psychiatric Medicines
Now, I'm venturing into muddy waters. I am not a lawyer, so I may be shooting from the hip. I may be inaccurate. But I am not a reporter for any media outlet. This is my personal blog, and if you EVER find anything inaccurate, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. I write my opinions, many of which are based upon media reporting. My only bias is liberty. But I *will* post corrections to any factual errors I may propagate, and I will flag them as such.
I ask, however, what is the nature of our health system, both physical and mental? I am a believer in liberty, but should a person who is a threat to themselves and others be entitled to unfettered access to firearms?
Trust me, I speak from personal experience. My father had mental issues. He attempted suicide via my .410 bore shotgun. Twice. It is a single shot, break-action. He had to reload and shoot himself again. After several surgeries and procedures, he finally wound up a paraplegic in a wheel chair, and became an even angrier man, apparently. He blamed everyone else for his misfortune, including his doctors. I still have that shotgun. I'm not really sure why. He bought it for me in my youth, he bastardized it, but I have not let it go.
Ultimately, he gunned down my mother. He apparently bought a .357 magnum through the papers, or perhaps a "swap shop" radio show. After killing her, he rolled around in his wheel chair, brandishing a weapon on a public highway. He was taken down by cops, rightly so, and some of them were friends with whom I went to school. I still have a piece of that police tape from the crime scene. My siblings & I told the State Police to melt down the .357. You can tell me I don't know what I'm talking about, but you've got an uphill battle to convince me otherwise.
Now, here we get further into the lawyer and legal-ese. I do not know what can be further done to keep firearms out of the hands of mentally ill persons. Perhaps I am misinformed, but even after the age of 13 (I think that was the age), I was not entitled to my own daughter's health information without consent.
Frankly, I don't really care when you had your last pap smear, prostate exam, or colonoscopy. Perhaps there is a small percentage of the population that gets off on that kind of stuff, but I'm not among them; I'm not even talking about making that information freely available.
But should not a mental health professional, or medical doctor, or ... someone... be able to check a magic box that flags a person as questionable to purchase a firearm? Or own one? I think it should automatically trigger a review... but our system is not set up to allow that... yet. I'm not a huge fan of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) but if it somehow helps people get care they were otherwise flapping in the wind with... I might become a convert.
Getting back to Santa Barbara, I do not know all the particulars of this case, apparently this person purchased his firearms legally. So did Seung-Hui Cho (The VA Tech shooter), Jared Loughner (Tuscon, shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords with others) and James Holmes (Aurora, CO). I may be wrong...
But call me crazy. (pun intended) Should there not be a method for a mental health professional to check a box on a form or computer submission to say "DANGER WILL ROBINSON!" and flag that person for further review? Should we not be looking at the Privacy laws and how they are implemented?
Think about it, firearms are already illegal in so many instances, in so many places. Within one mile of my house there are 3 schools, a post office, and a city court. All of them are "gun free zones."
Ironically, I pay for my Constitutional Right to carry a weapon. I hope you feel safer, because it certainly keeps me from bringing a weapon into ANY of those aforementioned places...
Sarcasm intended.
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