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If you want to stabilize the American family, give people healthcare and a living wage. If you're feeling suicidal you should be able to just walk in and talk to a doctor. Stuff like that would go a long way to preventing mass shootings. By all accounts you seem opposed to this.

Even when it comes to trauma, we all have different ways of coping (or not). Every situation (person) is completely 100% unique. Stabilizing the American family is a big part of fixing that. And for those instances that we can’t prevent, we have to get better at identifying the troubling patterns and get people help. So I think we agree there.

I think the idea is you want to make it as difficult as possible for mass shootings to happen. Background checks are a must, and any seller that doesn't do it properly has just as much blood on their hands as the mass shooter. if you restrict the ammunition a private citizen is allowed to have at one time, you're less likely to have mass shootings. I'm not entirely sure how Red flag laws would work in practice, but it seems pretty dangerous to have family members apply for a situation like that, especially in abusive households. The major reason why shootings are so common in america is a matter of ease. If they aren't going to use a gun, they might use a bomb, or a knife, but those things are either easier to track, or easier to stop, or harder to execute. And that's really what it comes down to. Reduce the problem one step at a time, rather than imagine you'll solve everything at once. As for other major factors, everyone is 'mentally ill', that's not really an excuse in this day and age. You can easily claim that shit after the fact, so why does it matter. Violent media and bloodsport have existed forever, and restricting that by any degree will create blowback that creates a greater problem than the one you're trying to fix. America could try and fix the symptoms, or just wait till the cancer does it's job and kills the country properly.

I understand your point but childhood trauma is so common. More common than people realize. I personally think we need to intercept these individuals when they're developing as awkward, socially inept, bitter, angry adolescents and teenagers.

The only point I was trying to make was that there are some things that we have to make laws against people owning or restrict ownership of certain things. JD was saying it's not the government's role to tell you how to live but that just simply isn't true. Maybe we should do away with drivers licenses and do away with traffic laws. Who the fuck is the government to tell me I can't drive just because I have narcolepsy? Again, I wouldn't ban assault rifles. I have already said what I would do. I actually agree with much of what you and JD say.

I love guns, more specifically handguns, more specifically revolvers. A revolver is old school technology, but for a real self-defense situation, you can't beat a J-Frame Smith and Wesson or a small Ruger in .38 special. People call the .38 special weak, but to this day nobody has volunteered to stand in front of me while I shoot it. Other people can do whatever they want, for the most part. But my little 5-shooter is all I need to feel safe. If I'm too far away to use it, I'm in a good position to do the right thing in a dangerous situation: run.