Good stuff here.  We're trying to solve a problem.  The talking heads just want us all to feel sad about it, as though it can't be prevented.  I've had a simple theory for a long time: when people feel anonymous, they can turn mean.  We need a sense of inclusion.  Isolation breeds aggression.

It's interesting that so many of these shooters turn out to be boys this age.  (This one looks like a little dweeb generally ignored.)  It's a time when parents sound like bartenders after last call: "You gotta go some place, cause you can't stay here."

With this one, already little hints of the malaise: Dad gone some time ago.  Hasn't heard from brother in a couple years.  I don't see a list of his friends.  I wonder if he felt very much alone.

The guns are a symptom, but, you know, it might take a little more out of you to have to kill a little kid with an ax.

There also seems to be something to the idea that we live in a world that is increasingly connected by social media, yet decreasing in real life social relationships. People, especially younger people I've noticed, substitute real human interaction with online, virtual communication. This seems like a potentially damaging phenomenon to the social fabric of our society. The internet becomes a blessing and a curse as it increase our awareness of the far away world, but replaces face to face human interaction with something lacking the emotional connection we need the thrive as humans.

 Are we more connected yet lonelier than ever before? The chemical reaction our brains produce when around real people I think is different than what we can get out of purely online relationships, and the increasing separation of the family is also a result. You raise a good point, the boy's father was missing from his life, and this is always a concern. Children need both parents active in their life, and the more the family structure suffers, the more the children suffer, and that can lead to drugging for a condition that could be treated with a healthy relationship with both parents.

Take a look at the Freedom's Phoenix article about Italian courts judgments on the source of autism. It has to do with vaccinations. Do you think, maybe, that medications have do do with all kinds of erratic behaviors among people?

http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Discussion-Page.htm?EdNo=001&Info=112089&View=Hide

Also, take a look at my comment in that article.

Note: If you are using a recent version of the Firefox browser, simply highlight the above link, and then right click it. You will be given options about how to open the link. Try it.
 

Thanks, PureTrust. Yes, I think vaccines and many pharmaceuticals are having a significant affect on the brains of Americans. I don't think the extreme rise in vaccinations over the past fifty years and the rise in autism and other brain disorders is a coincidence.

Medicine has always been an attempt to defeat Darwin. The more sophisticated your medicine gets, the more previously unviable patients you save. Though most patients' problems do not make them a danger to themselves or others, some of the patients "saved" are. We endangered society greatly when we began using our streets as "extension prisons" for violent criminals -- now we endanger it further by using them as "extension hospitals" for dangerous patients.