51 minutes ago, theguru said:

It is probably a factor.  I think in many cases people don't want to consider anything outside of their own gun narratives. 

There's no way to know. People are assuming CTE was a factor with zero reason other than the knowledge he had previous concussions. 

49 minutes ago, sportsfan41 said:

There are, but there are a lot of people with CTE who also will choose to take their own life and leave everyone else alone.  Point being, those folks don't make national headlines.  

I agree.

I just don't like the seemingly instant attempt to throw in a bunch of contributing factors in these situations. 

1 minute ago, TheDeuce said:

There's no way to know. People are assuming CTE was a factor with zero reason other than the knowledge he had previous concussions. 

If my life depended on it and had to choose I would say yes it was a factor but I agree we don't know and we will never know. 

1 minute ago, TheDeuce said:

I agree.

I just don't like the seemingly instant attempt to throw in a bunch of contributing factors in these situations. 

When the powers that be hide things from us it is human nature to fill in the blanks.  I am still waiting on the manifesto from the Nashville shooter to be released. 

1 hour ago, theguru said:

Mental illness is probably the one consistent factor in these shootings so if mental illness can't be addressed in a meaningful way these shootings will never stop.

Is it though? I've read several studies that link true, severe mental illness/psychosis to less than 10% of the mass shootings. Non psychotic forms of mental illness like depression, feelings of hopelessness, are present in more cases, but only roughly 25%. There are certainly other things like severe anger, and other risk factors like substance abuse and previous legal trouble that are more common. But an intense focus on severe mental illness probably won't do much to curb these events, and lead to fear and stigmatization which isn't good or productive either.  I think it's important to remember that bad behavior, evil thoughts and pure psychotic thoughts aren't the same thing as mental illness, and are much harder to "cure" and predict. Most of these events are well planned out and calculated...not exactly hallmark traits of mental illness, and it's been found that those who are truly mentally ill usually don't turn to firearms.

Mental illness is an easy scapegoat, and surely a big problem in our society, but a focus on mental illness while important isn't, in my opinion, going solve our issue with mass shootings. There are nearly 60 million people in the US with some form of mental illness, which based on the numbers, means mental illness is not a good predictor of this sort of behavior.

As morbid as this sounds, My friend's wife who was out of the building at the time will have better 2nd hand info than we will ever read.  I'm looking forward to hearing her take after the fact.  

2 minutes ago, spindoc said:

As morbid as this sounds, My friend's wife who was out of the building at the time will have better 2nd hand info than we will ever read.  I'm looking forward to hearing her take after the fact.  

Right, because we rarely get the truth of the matter. 

I agree we will never eliminate these events completely. It is very easy to reduce the number of these events. More guns equals more killing. Fewer guns equals fewer killings. That is a proven fact statistically and simple logic tells us it is true.

6 minutes ago, rjs4470 said:

Is it though? I've read several studies that link true, severe mental illness/psychosis to less than 10% of the mass shootings. Non psychotic forms of mental illness like depression, feelings of hopelessness, are present in more cases, but only roughly 25%. There are certainly other things like severe anger, and other risk factors like substance abuse and previous legal trouble that are more common. But an intense focus on severe mental illness probably won't do much to curb these events, and lead to fear and stigmatization which isn't good or productive either.  I think it's important to remember that bad behavior, evil thoughts and pure psychotic thoughts aren't the same thing as mental illness, and are much harder to "cure" and predict. Most of these events are well planned out and calculated...not exactly hallmark traits of mental illness, and it's been found that those who are truly mentally ill usually don't turn to firearms.

Mental illness is an easy scapegoat, and surely a big problem in our society, but a focus on mental illness while important isn't, in my opinion, going solve our issue with mass shootings.

I am painting with a broad brush but simply put almost anyone that kills in mass is not right in the head and if anyone disagrees please explain it to me.  I know plenty of people that are not right in the head that I don't believe have ever sought out any mental health services and there certainly is no official diagnosis.  I did find this in one of the articles I read that supports what you posted about the motivations behind mass shootings but it goes on to say, "They’re generally committed by middle-aged men who are responding to a severe and acute stressor, so they're not planned, which makes them very difficult to prevent."   That alone tells me in the moment or at the time, mass shootings are generally committed by men who are not right in the head.  And then we get into links to, primary cause, fundamental cause, lack of treatment and/or lack of any records to even know the mental health status, etc. which leads to statistics that are unreliable and I would argue manipulated in some form. 

2 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

I agree we will never eliminate these events completely. It is very easy to reduce the number of these events. More guns equals more killing. Fewer guns equals fewer killings. That is a proven fact statistically and simple logic tells us it is true.

I disagree.  More guns in the hands of good guys and good girls equals fewer killings.  Fewer guns generally means fewer legal guns in the hands of good guys and good girls and that will lead to more killings because we all know criminals will get their hands on guns. 

7 minutes ago, theguru said:

I disagree.  More guns in the hands of good guys and good girls equals fewer killings.  Fewer guns generally means fewer legal guns in the hands of good guys and good girls and that will lead to more killings because we all know criminals will get their hands on guns. 

Statistically and factually proven. In the US and in other countries. Fewer guns equals fewer killings.

If there were 10 million fewer guns in the US, there would be fewer killings.

5 minutes ago, theguru said:

I disagree.  More guns in the hands of good guys and good girls equals fewer killings.  Fewer guns generally means fewer legal guns in the hands of good guys and good girls and that will lead to more killings because we all know criminals will get their hands on guns. 

There is just no evidence to support this. It is purely speculative. Sure in theory it sounds great, but it's not that simple. 

Let's pretend everyone has a gun. Mass shootings won't mysteriously stop. If anything, they would increase because more people that shouldn't have guns would have them. 

Now let's say a trained individual walks into anywhere with a gun and there are 1-5 completely untrained people also with guns. Who has the advantage there? Now we have six people shooting and five of them couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. 

Just now, TheDeuce said:

There is just no evidence to support this. It is purely speculative. Sure in theory it sounds great, but it's not that simple. 

Let's pretend everyone has a gun. Mass shootings won't mysteriously stop. If anything, they would increase because more people that shouldn't have guns would have them. 

Now let's say a trained individual walks into anywhere with a gun and there are 1-5 completely untrained people also with guns. Who has the advantage there? Now we have six people shooting and five of them couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. 

I never said it would be easy, gun ownership and carry is a huge responsibility that requires a lot of ongoing training. 

Just one tidbit, didn't the Nashville shooter pass on another location that had more security and choose the soft target?

1 minute ago, theguru said:

I never said it would be easy, gun ownership and carry is a huge responsibility that requires a lot of ongoing training. 

Just one tidbit, didn't the Nashville shooter pass on another location that had more security and choose the soft target?

I have no idea. I haven't kept up with that too much to be honest. 

5 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

Statistically and factually proven. In the US and in other countries. Fewer guns equals fewer killings.

It all depends on who has the guns.  Imagine if every school teacher was armed and trained along with with retired special forces and police officers at every school.  School mass shootings would go way, way down.