[HerbZ]

I'm sadden to learn of this tragedy, and my thoughts and prayers go out to the families of all those involved.

I'm also sadden to think how we're in for another round of legislation by politicians all too eager to grab the spotlight and work on the peoples' emotions. They'll want yet more "gun control" because it's always easier to identify and attack the symptoms than the causes.

Something is horribly wrong with an individual who'll express his personal pain, anger, frustration, and the loss that may have caused it upon the community in such a manner as this. Sure the availability of handguns and ammunition may have made his actions possible, but this possibility has existed for generations here. There must be dozens if not hundreds of songs that deal specifically with this young man's kind of loss, and sometimes they do have tragic endings like murder and suicide. But not of these proportions we're witnessing today, and not upon strangers who have nothing to do with the affair.

There's something horribly wrong with a society that keeps repeatedly producing such individuals. Individuals who feel so alone, so isolated, so disconnected from the community and society that make their lives possible, that they can strike out so violently against what after all is an extension of themselves, their family and home. Now, many may want to decry such an accusatory statement as mine. Say that I'm trying to take responsibility for an individual's actions and spread it too far and freely (even liberally). But I say that restricting the blame to only the individual who has committed these atrocious acts is just as unknowing, unthinking, and unwise as only finding blame with the availability of the means he used.

And going off and distributing the blame to a whole litany of things like; the public school systems, the media, video games and so and so forth; isn't going to get to the heart of the matter either. There may very well be problems with all of these, but they're just more symptoms. We have to get down to something much more fundamental to all the many features and facets of our society and culture; the very values that determine everything else. These are reflected in the customs we practice in our daily lives, in all our institutions both public and private, and in the very language we use when we speak.