I'm getting sick of this ****. These kinds of shootings are becoming too regular. I don't know who, but who ever has the job of examining patterns in the shooters needs to get working and find a way to help stop this. And I don't want to hear any BS about "well, some people are bad and you can't stop them." That argument is almost as bad as "God did it."
Well, it's pretty much impossible to stop this kind of thing.
First, red flags only become so after the fact. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say. Sure, there are "yellow" flags beforehand, but there's absolutely no way of telling if someone is going to actually do something like this or if they're just shooting their mouth off. Warning signs are ambiguous enough that it's never possible to tell until after the fact.
Second, even if someone picked up on these signals, what are they going to do? Go to the police? The police would say they couldn't do anything about it because no crime was committed. Have this person committed to a mental institution based on a few things they've said? Does anyone even know how to go about doing something like that? And if so, do you really think that you can get someone involuntarily committed based on a few things that they have said?
No, the answer isn't tightening gun control. Nor is it increasing the police force. Nor is it making it easier to involuntarily commit someone.
The problem (and why you are going to see more of these types of actions) is lack of access to proper healthcare, including mental healthcare. This is combined with the broader stresses people are put through (due to the economy, for example). We need a concerted effort to increase access to mental healthcare, and a change in culture that not only broadly promotes mental healthcare but a
proactive approach to mental healthcare as well.
This is a problem with the stigma surrounding mental healthcare, the lack of recognition of mental healthcare as an integral part of one's broader healthcare, lack of access to mental healthcare, lack of insurance coverage for mental healthcare, and so on. Blaming this on guns or a lack of vigilance, or a lack of security are all inadequate band-aid solutions to the broader problem, which is
much more complex, deep-rooted and nuanced.
I can't imagine anyone doing something like this in an elementary school. It just seems unreal to me. These are innocent little kids who didn't do anything to anyone. It makes me want to have my kid home-schooled, to be honest.
The amount of school shootings is negligible, statistically speaking. This is a case of something happening so rarely that when it does happen it is reported on widely, unreasonably increasing the level of fear and conception of frequency in the public consciousness. You'd probably be doing more damage to your kid home schooling them.
FWIW I went to a school where a kid brought a loaded gun to school in 7th grade with the intention to "scare" people. They caught him before he could use it, luckily. He had a "hit" list in his locker. I still am not scared of sending my future children to school.
EDIT: He was a Chapter 220 student (i.e. the program where kids are bussed in from the ghetto to go to a suburban school). His home life was basically nonexistent; I wouldn't be surprised if his parents were drug addicts and/or abused him. He was a huge troublemaker in school and would always get picked on by people. After getting caught he was expelled and arrested. Last I heard he's serving a life sentence for accidentally shooting a pregnant woman.
I actually feel bad for him; I really feel like if someone stepped in and actually helped him when he got caught with the gun he could have been helped. But nobody did; they just kicked him out of school and gave him a felony, and after that he didn't have a chance. That's the problem with our culture that I'm talking about.