How do we stop mass killings?

I have absolutely no idea.

I’m sure gun control won’t stop them. Even if you could un-invent guns, people would just use bombs, or arson, or poison, or park trucks on train tracks, push generators into public pools or do a thousand more horrible things that I can’t even guess it.

It’s the people who are the problem, not the tool they choose. (A fact so self-evident, I don’t know why I even have to mention it. After all, millions of people have access to all these devices of mass murder and never even think about using them.)

But how do you control people? Especially in a free society?

Are the killers always mentally ill? Sometimes suicidal? Politically motivated? Religiously motivated?

Do we need different approaches to the different root causes?

I really just don’t know.

What I do know is we will never cure the problem while we keep focusing on the symptoms (the use of guns for example) instead of the diseases.

3 comments August 8th, 2012