I´m generally not a fan of Obama, but I agree with the one quote from him in the article. Today´s laws and procedures regarding the seriously mentally ill and their access to guns do not work. Most families who have a seriously mentally ill loved one know this. There is nothing to stop a person with serious mental illness from purchasing either guns or ammunition. A huge mistake in this case was both parents of this young man having weapons in their homes...but, then, the mental health field doesn´t advise families that some people need to not have access to weapons. In our defense of the Second Amendment, as a society we often forget that not everyone needs access to weapons. We don´t give them to 2 year olds; we don´t give them to Alzheimer´s patients; we shouldn´t give them to the seriously mentally ill.

We don´t give young children access to matchsticks, car keys, sharp knives. Ancient cultures had rigid customs regarding these things before matchsticks, cars and firearms were invented. Guns are more lethal and a ´mistake´ can be deadlier. But all of these common sense ideas will go out the door as the Left begins demanding a ban on assault weapons - code words for ripping up the Second Amendment.

The left wants to "mainstream" any mentally ill person.

The left wants to confiscate your guns.


(Is that a short acurate summary?)

How should we identify the "mentally ill?" Should they wear a big "M" patch on their sleeve? This shooter reportedly had Asperger´s, which many highly functioning, productive members of society also have. The truth is, there really isn´t any way to be sure of stopping something like this. Gun control won´t do it--it would never be possible (nor desirable) to completely ban guns. The crazies who want to shoot someone will always be able to do so. Wasn´t there a similar situation in progressive, gun-hating Norway not so long ago?

Obama wants to come together and prevent any more .......,
I was listening for coming together and protect 4 unfortunate Americans in Benghazi.
Do you think after 3 months there has been any beefing up of any locations that the people on the ground have requested???

I´m old enough to remember when people who were considered to be "a danger to self and others" were committed to mental hospitals. I´m also old enough to remember how that model was deemed "to expensive" and abused patient rights, etc. Everyone became an out patient and became part of a group home. They closed all the mental hospitals, and expected drugs to cure every psychotic patient. It didn´t work.

The USA sure did do a bang up job of controlling guns in Fast and Furious and Benghazi, didn´t they? (no pun intended)

The parents were divorced and Adam Lanza it has been reported lived with his mother.
ADD, ADHD, bi-polar, etc. are not mental disabilities-----rather chemical unbalance. Too many receive medications for these disorders and it has been researched to indicate if taken off these meds the next bout of these disorders get progressively worse.
Take out MSG, aspertaine and all other additives and chemicals out of food, stop giving animals and foul hormones and antibotics and other NOT natural medications and one would see the difference in the population again.
So, equal blame on the FDA and other regulations play a big part in the communities today.

Over a thousand children are dismembered and killed every day in the USA, and it is legal. It is called abortion. Why no outcry?

If this ´kid´ was living with his mom and dependent upon her for his needs, she is the sad one to have had to expect the worse and kept access to weapons out of his hands. We have a son with clinical depression who started cutting in high school and, yes, we took great care in controlling access to blades throughout our home. Was it a guarantee of protection, no. Was it a pain in the tush? Not as much as coming home to find him carved upon. I do think the PC Police have much of this carnage on their heads, as do the military peers & supervisors of Maj. Nadal, Ft. Hood murderer and others. Better to be a scold than dead.

Having worked as a mental health clinician and a mental professional charged with implementing the commitment act for over 25 years, this comment is completely wrong, #1: "...but, then, the mental health field doesn´t advise families that some people need to not have access to weapons." As is this comment: "....to remember when I´m old enough to remember when people who were considered to be "a danger to self and others" were committed to mental hospitals." Guess what, I committed hundreds of people from 1976 to 2001. And mental health hospitals still existed. The problem was community mental health centers were charged to treat these people with chronic and severe diagnoses, but opted, instead, to treat mostly patients with "issues" disorders. Why, because they thought them easier to treat yet somehow or another they treated them every week for years and years. I know what the community model was supposed to do and developed a program that would treat the chronic and severely mental ill in the community, not by appointments but being out in the real world doing normalization and close monitoring of medication use. I saw patients who had 6 or more psychiatric hospitalizations per year down to one every couple of years. The concept worked.

Good to see someone like #11 on the thread, a professional who knows something about the subject. Much of the rest of the opinion on these threads is based upon what a Brit friend used to call "a storehouse of bogus information".

The mother was a gun collector. We don´t have the foggiest notion whether her guns were locked up or not. Nor do we know that a smart guy like her son Adam would know where to find the key. We don´t know that he ever showed one sign of violence. Something that would have caught this intelligent mother´s attention.

So we traipse through this story, further muddying the carpet with a bunch of speculation that is worth exactly nothing.

Parents with children of any age, or with special needs family members, in the home should lock guns in a gun safe, and if necessary, keep a gun at the ready for self protection, and out of reach of those who should not have access. My parents carefully watched us as children around a hot stove, a hot iron, electrical outlets, matches, to keep us out of harm´s way. It sounds as though this young man had easy access to his mother´s guns.

It is still true that if we banned guns, only criminals and tyrants and their brown shirts would have guns. I would rather take my chances with a conceiled carry crowd, and the ability to stop tyrants like Hitler and Chauchescu and Obama from ruling and reigning, and oppressing free people. Long live the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. And as one poster noted, a thousand innocent children are killed everyday on the abortionists table. Will guns protect them, or politicians? Bloomburg? They want to disarm dissent for their own selfish meglomania.

In the big picture, the gun laws work however anyone who has a family member who is not mentally stable and who has guns available should be considered just as guilty, as the perp if their guns are used by a family member to commit a crime. We need to get a grip on this without penalizing the majority of people who have guns who never ever commit a crime. Most people who have guns never commit a crime. On the other hand, who needs an assault rifle that fires numerous rounds other than a member or the military or our police force?
The NRA is being unreasonable and so is the government.