What is wrong with people that this is happening so much?
Nothing is anymore "wrong" with people these days as any other time in modern history. The problem lies with laxed laws on a multitude of things and irresponsible people in general. This case was particularly disturbing. Gun control issues aside, the kid who did this was mentally disturbed and his mother was aware of that. And yet she kept assault rifles in the house. Not only that, but she regularly took her mentally disturbed son to the firing range and taught him to shoot various firearms, including said assualt rifle. Also there were hundreds of rounds found. Hundreds.... no private citizen needs that much for any reason. You can't blame that kid, but you can blame the school system, his doctors and his parents for failing to get him the treatment he needed.
In the old days if you had mental issues you were committed. This seems cruel until you realize that it's for the protection of everyone else. Currently you are allowed to roam free if you aren't considered a danger to society. Well the problem is they determine that largely on if you have ever committed violent acts in the past. It's like letting a doberman play with a baby because it's never hurt anyone before. Your first violent act, like this kids, could be to go nuts and kill a bunch of people.
This is why we have laws, for gun control, mandatory psychiatric evaluation and a multitude of other things. They are meant to protect us from unresponsible people. People who are in favor of laxed laws have a fatal flaw in their arguments... they are basing their side of the argument on the merits of personal responsibility, when some people, the worst of us, simply don't take personal responsibility... thus the entire reason we need laws of any kind.
This isn't a political issue by any means, people try to make it one, but it really isn't.
Every time something terrible like this happens the response is always "How could somebody do something like this?" Well that is an easy question. They can do something terrible because we, as a society, allow them the opportunity to do so. There will always be bad people, there will always be crazy people. The key to stopping them is to have laws and regulations in check to make it extremely difficult for these types of people to ever have the opportunity to do something like this.
This isn't ethical grand-standing on my part, this is very personal to me. My Surrogate father had this cousin. He was mentally unstable. He was the kindest, gentlest man you've ever known though. He was so unstable that he tried to kill himself on a few occasions and underwent evaluation because of it. Even though he never went through treatment, he was released. One day he decides he wants to get a gun. Now this is a small town and everybody in the community knew the guy, even the owners of the gun shop. Now the law states that anyone deemed mentally unfit cannot own firearms. Well there's no easy way to check that first off and secondly even though they knew the guy and on his request form he mentions that he's been deemed mentally unfit and has attempted suicide in the past, they sell him the gun anyway, scratching that part of the form off. Afterall, he wasn't dangerous and they wanted that money. The next day he decides he wants to shoot somebody, just to see what it feels like. He succeeds. The police have to shoot him as well.
Everybody's response to the incident was "How could he do something like that?" Yeah how could a guy who's docotor neglected to committ him, who's family neglected to watch him and who's friends refused to deny him a gun do something like that. If the state had required him to be committed and/or monitored and it was just a little bit harder to sell a person off the street a gun, two people might be alive today.
People have two options... crack down on this stuff, even if it makes their lives a little inconvenient and slightly hinders their personal freedoms, or accept the fact that these horrific events are going to occasionally happen because we have no practical means to stop it. I know where I stand on the issue, but society is going to have to accept one reality or the other and act accordingly. Laws take away a little of our freedom in exchange for added security, this is how every single law in the books works. It amazes me that some people don't understand that.
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