It's sad but true. As I said in my post about Virginia Tech, that was not the first of those types of shootings and certainly will not be the last.
The Omaha mall shootings just reaffirmed my belief that nothing is ever going to change in this country.
One difference being that apparently this guy *stole* the gun he used to kill all those people out Christmas shopping that day, but what difference does that really make? The gun was around, someone had it because hell yes, it's our constitutional freedom, and he could easily get it.
The media focus seems to be completely on how the shooter was this "mentally troubled" youth. It was the health system. Yes, that's right, that's what caused him to crack. The health system let him down.
From the Washington Post's "Mall Killer Had History of Mental Woes":
The state intervened after the family's health-care program refused to continue paying for the shooter's treatment at Piney Ridge, Landry said. But the health department terminated its care in August 2006 after Hawkins failed to comply with a community service requirement and a court declared him "nonamenable to further services," he said.
Landry said the department acted properly in closing the shooter's case, which did not represent "a failure of the system to provide . . . appropriate services." He said he did not think the state could have done anything more and that "all appropriate services were provided when needed for as long as needed."
He added: "It would be nice to have had a crystal ball. . . . Certainly, if we had known this was going to happen . . . we would have stopped it."
Could they have really stopped it? Really? Isn't that what they said about the Virigina Tech shooter: "if only we had known..." But there is no way you can know. This guy wasn't much different than your average joe, as was the Viriginia Tech guy.
OK so he was fired from McDonalds?? and broke up with his girlfriend?? Who doesn't go through something like that? And since when are those reasons to go and shoot up a mall?? No one could have possibly known.
Ultimately, it's just another case of some loser thinking that because his life is so pitiful, he can somehow justify taking the lives of others to make up for his sad and dejected life.
I can't help but feel like if he weren't so easily able to track down a gun, maybe he would've gone to that mall and thrown rocks at people. Or something equally stupid. Maybe.
I'm sure some people will say, oh, but even if we had gun control laws, people like this guy would still be able to track down a gun and use it. He would find a way. Maybe so, maybe not. But it might help to make it just that much harder. And just that many more people's lives might be around. And they might be here to thank us. Maybe.
