There have been three mass shootings recently: Gilroy, El Paso, and now Dayton. It appears that the shooters all expected to die, though the one in El Paso was taken alive.
The Gilroy shooter shot himself in the mouth, forensics say. The Dayton shooter was shot by police, preliminary reports indicate. Did the El Paso guy just give up? We don’t know, maybe his gun jammed - it happens - and he didn’t have a back-up.
My point is that most mass shooters are suicidal; they expect to suicide-by-cop while doing terrible things they believe they must do. In this they resemble the people Islamic terrorists convince to be suicide bombers.
Is there a way to identify such people and get them into treatment or preventive detention before they become a public menace? Can this be done without a massive curtailing of civil rights and individual freedoms?
Corralling guns won’t solve the problem, such individuals have used speeding vehicles to ram into crowds or homemade firebombs. The problem is sicko, suicidal individuals with grudges. I don’t know the answer.
