Ilov80s
Footballguy
These are complex issues no doubt and no matter how we breakdown the numbers, the numbers are disturbingly high. Americans seem to have an obsession with violence that is uncommon in the 1st world. I do think the best long term solution is to address what is at the heart of those issues. However, doctors tend to treat both the causes and the symptoms. We should probably do the same when it comes to violence. Also, I am not entirely sure we can say the motivation behind killing your family is really different from killing strangers. At this point, the motive for the Vegas shooting seems non-existant. Even in other similar mass shooitngs, the motives vary widely from religion based hate, race based hate, political based hate, revenge on employers, revenge on those that have slighted them, etc. Charles Whitman killed his family and then strangers for no apparent reason (speculation he had a tumor on his brain that maybe turned him violent).Pulse was maybe sort of religion based but also there may have been some sexual issues too. The guy that killed 21 people near a California McDonalds did it for no apprent reason other than "he felt he had mental problems". It just seems difficult to me to pin down the characteristiscs of these things beyond: number of victims, type of weapon and age/gender/race. The things that seem the most common denominators are guns and males.I suppose it's a fundamental difference in how to view the issue. Lots of people see a gun problem, and that's certainly valid and there is no question that guns make it easier to kill more people at a time.
Others see the root problem more as a culture and general violence problem.
Personally, I think that solving the root problems is more important and would provide more long-term benefits than solving the gun issue. And when we talk root problems, the motivation and reasoning for why gang violence vs. domestic disputes vs. crime-related shootings are all slightly different and need to be understood and addressed as such.
In my mind, simply looking at the guns portion while ignoring the festering cultural issue is like taking Tylenol for a horrible recurring headache while neglecting to do anything about the tumor in the head causing the headaches.