(03-20-2016, 12:51 PM)Cathalea Wrote: What he's saying is don't characterize every gun violence inciter as mentally il.

And I'm not, however, we're not taking about every incident of gun violence. This subject started out talking about a mass shooting, not general gun violence. If you're going to talk about mass shootings, guess what, mental health is always going to be brought into it.

We are either talking about gun-related massacres or we're talking about gun violence in general, because in America they are not one in the same and they tend to be viewed in very different terms. Massacres are usually not preformed spur of the moment or spontaneously out of anger. I think we'd all agree that it's pretty unlikely any normal, rational adult could ever make the claim "I got pretty angry so I suddenly pulled out my gun and killed sixteen children and a school teacher".

Pointing to massacres in the US and demanding action will only ever get the discussion turned to mental health and gun ownership for that very specific subset of the population. If you want to push gun-restriction in the US, you need to take another approach.