Two things

Perhaps it's preaching to the choir to put it in my LJ, but I feel like doing my part to propagate what I believe are the two most important points in the discussion of the week's top news story.

• The actions of the shooter were planned with deliberation. If guns had not been available he'd've found another way. The gun control issue is irrelevant to the discussion of this event because greater gun control could not have prevented what happened.
• What could have prevented it was the psychological and psychiatric programs to which the shooter was subjected. Obviously they didn't, but you and I haven't any way of knowing how many people there are who, subjected to the same programs, have come away helped and functional. No system is perfect and every system has its unpredictable misses alongside its hits, and by their very nature there's nothing we can do about them except keep a level head when they happen.