Don't worry, soon it'll be a 'Guns Make Us Safer' post from Goldy, so we can spend time arguing about gun control rather than wasting it with things like sympathy.

Yeah, @1...
Heaven forbid we talk about how it's guns that make this sort of shit possible. Like you say - let's all cry about this for a while and then go back to shooting each other.

And in answer to Charles' question:
People will stop doing this sort of thing when we stop making it so damn easy for them to get guns. That is, when the majority of voters have the strength and presence of mind to admit that guns are dangerous weapons in anyone's hands, and need to be tightly regulated. Not a minute sooner.

"it's WAY too late for gun control in America" - steve earle.

the debate is over. guns won. amoklauf killings are the price we collectively decided to pay for a liberal interpretation of 2nd amendment.

See? 27 minutes. About as long as I thought it would take.

I don't care about gun control, and I think it's a losing, distracting argument for liberals to engage in. Just don't expect me to get one, because I think they're corny.

How about better mental health care?

@ 2, 3, I seem to remember one use of guns that made you happy. Do you remember that as well?

Hypocrite.

@6 I agree completely about mental health care. It's hard to believe state administrations think that mental health is and easy part of the budget to carve up, yet that's exactly what the morons in my state want to do.

Does letting the insane wander the streets really save money in the longrun? I don't think it does. Lifetime incarceration costs a lot more than a series of outpatient therapy sessions and some meds.

Hopefully we all can agree nine lives are worth much, much more than the cost it would have taken the system to identify people like this and help them before something awful happens.

@1: sympathy for random victims you don't know is difficult in the abstract. we now "know" trayvon martin & his family - it makes empathy possible.

when it is multiple people you don't know, it becomes more abstract. when it is multiple instances of multiple people you don't know, year after year, with no practical solution on the horizon, it is even more abstract.

i think turning the conversation to gun control is an attempt, however weak, to try to find a solution, to prevent further amoklauf killings. as, probably, is the typical pro-handgun "enforce the laws we have" response. neither of which will do jack to stop the next massacre.

how would you propose to focus on sympathy?

@7, funny you should bring up Africa, there are many examples from that continent of the peace and stability that results when you arm everyone. Well played.

@6, that's a false trade-off, and I think everyone is tired of that corny shit.

Biff dear, what exactly am I falsely trading off? After all it's entirely possible to have lax gun laws and excellent mental health care.

Fine, I'll say it: Something about God's will goes here.

amoklauf killings are the price we collectively decided to pay for a liberal interpretation of 2nd amendment.

Max nailed it.