Top Twenty School Massacres

The United States certainly has a problem, but it is not the only country where this happens.  Places with strict firearm control still have school massacres.  

Crime Prevention Research Center: Various Countries' Mass Shooter Death Rates (US is not tops)

I agree with the left that easier access to firearms (to persons with mental issues who should not have them) contributes to firearm deaths. I am willing to listen to common sense solutions for helping to deal with that.  

Does that risk that criminals and the mentally ill may obtain and kill with firearms justify strictly regulating and confiscating firearms like they did in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom? We have celebrities promoting kids walking out of schools in protest. So will banning AR-15, for example, mean no more school shootings? No. Where does the gun banning stop? Make no mistake: This is their goal.  

Part of the problem is why the increase in these crimes?  While mass shooting are still exceedingly rare (percentage wise with the population as a whole), there are more of these events now than in the past. Schools are soft targets (where shooters know most people won't be able to shoot back).  The media coverage of these events plays a huge role, combined with eroding moral values and increased alienation. Politicians definitely are not addressing the real problem.  Townhall is right these steps would make a huge difference.  

At the same time, murder and violent crime rates are going down (dramatically). And guess what, states with more guns typically have lower crime rates.  

Almost all shooters are male. While the left tries to portray these shooters as mostly white, the racial break down of shooters actually tracks societal demographics.  

The United States had 500,000 mentally ill people involuntarily detained in the 1950s. With more than twice the population, we have about 60,000 people involuntarily detained today. While that does not fully explain mass shooting, it is definitely a factor with the explosion of homeless populations and the opioid drug epidemic. We are also sending more mentally ill people to prison (because the longer they are out on the streets, the more likely they are to get arrested and sent to prison).  

We do need to make it procedurally easier to forcibly detain people (beyond 72 hours) who show imminently dangerous behavior to themselves or others. We need more facilities to provide monitored out-care services to the mentally ill.  It is more humane, probably more effective in dealing with these mental illnesses, and ultimately more cost effective. Having our cities with concentrated homeless populations does not benefit anyone.  

And we also need to recognize we are never going to be 100% safe. There is always danger, always risk.  

Civil commitment in the United States

Proof Positive: Common Sense Gun Laws

Don Surber: DACA, MS-13, and 208 Murders

Powerline: Go ahead and repeal the 2nd Amendment

Legal Insurrection: People saw and said something, but to no avail...

AoSHQ: Remembering History, Guilty As Sin, Morning Report and They did it before, they'll do it again

TOM: No, our boys are not broken, 327,000,000 people (some of them are freaks) and Europe's Last Hope

EBL: Coward Of The CountyThe FBI managed to stop these criminals and Prayers and condolences for Florida shooting victims

Instapundit: In frequency of mass killings the US falls between France and Canada, Fire Christopher Wray/Reform FBI, Chuck Todd wants to end the 2nd Amendment, Sit In My Class, the Left is reaping the whirlwind it sowed, and stop shooting by aborting babies?