Another thought. Why is all this happening now? Is the incidence of mental illness higher than in the past? Are guns easier to acquire than in the past? I don’t think so. California has very restrictive gun laws.
I tend to think that all the mass media attention to these shootings provokes more shootings. People with mental illness in their twisted minds think that they want to out in some sort of ‘blaze of glory’ like the other shooters who get so much attention on TV.
@TatinG it’s happening now because Americans have more guns per capita than any other country in the world…there are crazy people everywhere…the difference here is that we’re awash in handguns, etc…current data:
The 10 countries with the most guns:
USA - 112.6 guns per 100 residents.
Serbia - 75.6.
Yemen - 54.8.
Switzerland - 45.7.
Cyprus - 36.4.
Saudi Arabia - 35.
Iraq - 34.2.
Uruguay - 31.8.
@TatinG I do think the incidence of PTSD is higher because we have a very small group of individuals who join the military and as a country we stay embroiled in these foreign conflicts. We then have the same group of people doing multiple tours.
Questions: Was there a time when we didn’t have more guns per capita than any country in the world? Seems to me in the past, guns would have been in the hands of more people than now. People had guns for hunting and for protection. ( yes, there may have been fewer guns, but my guess is more households had guns than today).
Millions of GIs who had seen the extreme horrors of World War II came home. Was the incidence of PTSD in those GIs less than now? Surely there was even less mental health treatment then. Yet, unless I am misinformed, I haven’t heard of shootings by those returned GIs?
I don’t know, I’m asking what I think are valid questions.
They definitely didn’t have the capacity in the past they do now for rapid firing and large magazines. I’ve actually loaded a musket - they’d be able to kill one person before being overwhelmed. Still not sure of status of my friend’s kid. 
My D is a Cal Lutheran alum, recently transferred. This was their hangout and my understanding is it was not 21 and over, but a bar and grill. Has to stop
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/despite-mass-shootings-number-of-households-owning-guns-is-on-the-decline/ indicates that the percentage of households owning guns has been declining.
However, that is different from the number of guns per capita, since some gun owners have a lot of guns (the article notes that 14% of gun owners, or 7.6 million, own half of all guns in the US, or about 130 million guns, or about 17 guns each).
https://www.rsfjournal.org/doi/full/10.7758/RSF.2017.3.5.02 has more information on gun ownership.
@droppedit - I’ve often wondered the same thing - why has a crime culture that gave us serial killers now giving us mass shooters?
Is it the need for instant gratification? More of a desire for suicide? More possible because it’s easier to mass shoot today because of gun/ammo technology and access?
It might seem like a strange question to ask but we need to look at everything if it can give us an answer and help us find a solution.
There was plenty of PTSD after Vietnam, but very few mass shootings.
@ucbalumnus When we divorced, I made my ex inventory his guns (kept in a gunsafe) with me present so we could value them. He owned 42 guns.
Kids at school today, while horrified, see these events as a type of normal. It’s part of life. My guess is most people in our country do at this point, so if anyone is inclined toward violence and suicide, this method is optional in their eyes. We have to find a way to encourage empathy while also controlling who can access guns IMO.
News is reporting that he was evaluated by again ‘mental health professionals’ in April. Don’t know exactly what type of credentials they had. He was cleared. They determined he didn’t qualify for involuntary commitment. His mother, reportedly was terrified of him and for him. This is a running theme in so many of these mass killings. Involuntary commitment standards need to be changed so that the person and the public are protected.
Perhaps this is another difference between now and past times. It was easier in past decades to have someone involuntarily committed.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data/ indicates a few per year since 1982, but the number per year began to increase in the 2000s and has greatly increased in the 2010s. This is despite the general decline in crime, including murder, since the 1980s.
However, it is possible that some in the past are not well known due to sticking out less in a high crime era, or that they may not have been noticed beyond their local area.
^^^Same with WWII. Every able bodied man was in uniform, millions of them. Yet when they came home were there mass shootings? Not to my knowledge.
I do believe involuntary commitments are difficult to obtain these days, as is getting good mental health treatment.
The latest from the college: “What we do know is that 16 Pepperdine students were in the venue at the time of the incident. One of those students remains unaccounted for, and we know of two students who were treated and released from a local hospital.”
Apparently the missing Pepperdine student is the niece of former Disney Star Tamera Mowry Housely. Allegedly her iphone still shows her location as being at the club. That is quite ominous.
Once again, I feel sick for the world we have created for our young people.
We don’t institutionalize metal health patients like we used to. I think their was a big change in combat between WWII and Vietnam. Since Vietnam, I think our soldiers at war see much more fighting and less down time. Multiple tours don’t help. But there are many issues to consider – unfortunately we only look for a “quick fix” and don’t have the stomach to really focus on the root causes.
It’s always good to remember that there are so many more good people than bad. Right now, the call for blood donations has been so successful that the line is 5 hours long and they are turning people away. Also, people are lining the route honoring the fallen police officer as his body is moved to the coroner’s office.
Cal Lutheran has posted on their website that the family of a young graduate (age 23) has notified them that he was among the victims.
@greenwitch – I really don’t know … not even whether serial killers are now mass murderers. Just throwing out some ideas:
I think that #3 somewhat discounts #1-2 as explanations. There was no grand plan for Whitman, just uncontrollable and irrational hostility. He didn’t appear to have a particular reason for climbing the Tower and shooting people.