Some more thoughts from a mental health providers listserv:

[Jackpine Radical]

One very robust variable for violent crime in general is neighborhoods. Eric Silver of Penn State has done some really spectacular work on this question. About 15 years ago, I recall that some inmates did a study for a college criminology class in which they demonstrated that 75% of all of the violent crime in the state of NY was directly ties to 7 discreet (and relatively small) neighborhoods in NYC. Not surprisingly, these were the same 7 neighborhoods that showed up in studies of almost every bad thing you can think of, including poverty.

Of course, this has no relationship to the mass homicides that get all of the attention, but lots of kids are killed each year, and the fact that they are not all killed at the same time does not diminish the severity of the tragedy of each and every death.

Sadly, we know very little of use about mass homicide. Most of the commonalities that have been retrospectively identified are vague (e.g., anger, social disconnectedness, depression) and very very common (e.g., anger, social disconnectedness, depression).

When it is difficult to know for sure why bad things happen, the smart play is to try interventions that might help and are very unlikely to make it worse. For example, the following things would seem to me to be wise:

1. TV networks should agree to stop glorifying perpetrators of these crimes. For example, what is the benefit of showing their pictures for days and days, or asking "experts" to speculate wildly about the motives of a person they know almost nothing about?
2. Increase funding for crisis services, not just for people with SMI, but for people who are in emotional crises of many types.
3. Eliminate the ability of people to legally buy guns immediately and without any background checks at gun shows or in private sales.
4. Limit legal gun ownership to weapons that are reasonably related to hunting, sport shooting, or personal protection.
5. Encourage parents to make their kids spend less time playing violent video games and more time getting physical exercise.
6. Defeat laws that allow guns on college campuses and in bars, because drunk people (esp. 19 year old drunk people) and guns are a very bad combination.
7. Provide mo' better public information on gun safety, and encourage gun owners to be adequately trained on the danger and safe handling of firearms.
8. Invest more money in adequately staffing police departments, and training officers in how to deal with people in crisis.
9. Stimulate job creation in the neighborhoods that need it most.
10. Foster a national dialogue on courtesy. I don't have any data to support this except my own observations, but America has become an alarmingly discourteous country. We see it on TV, on cable news channels and sitcoms. We see it on list serves, where people call each other's ideas stupid instead of arguing their merit. And we see it on the street, where "How ya doin'?" has been largely replaced by "What the fuck you lookin' at?"
11. Consider teaching ethics and conflict resolution skills to first graders. This has resulted in some fascinating long-term benefits in studies of real kids. (See, for example, Dennis Embry's work on "Peacebuilders."

None of these measures will instantly make us safe, but each of them might help at least a little bit, and none of them will likely make things worse. Many of them have other societal benefits besides violence reduction, which makes them doubly wise.

[Gregorian]

1. Very good basic foundation stuff.

I can't emphasize enough that this is where we need to focus our attention, aside from the obvious.

[patrice]

5. I cannot agree with you more. & I have thought so for a very long time, that is, this is not a

political issue for me personally. though it certainly has dominating political factors.

[Thinkingabout]

2. Are we going to be able to get the likes of Wayne LaPierre on the list?

[patrice]

3. Criteria #1 iinsurance coverage of cradle-to-grave mental health services: organic community based

resources open, at minimum, 8a to 8p, 7 days a week.

[nolabear]

4. Excellent suggestions. We must come out of our corners and work together.

Where's the listserv? Sounds like a lot of good conversation going on, and I think most of my professional organizations have been much, much too quiet.

[Fire Walk With Me]

6. I agree with everything except "more police".

If the writer had ever spent time in or spoken to anyone from the target areas for crime, they'd already know that violent, racist police are part of the problem.

This is what happened to a man eating sunflower seeds in downtown LA. He had to be taken away in an ambulance.

Video by LA CAN

And people will always be people. We definitely need to focus upon love, inclusion, compassion, caring, and support instead of dividing and demonizing, especially regarding automatic, fearful reactions to what is not yet fully understood (make an effort to understand. I'm "mentally ill" and I will be here reminding that we are people first and foremost, and that an estimated one in four Americans suffer from varying degrees of illness. Perhaps as a result of a society not focused upon love, inclusion, compassion, caring and support.) The Columbine shooters got their guns from friends, IIRC, and there were guards at their school. Laws against guns failed there, as well as attempts at armed prevention. We have work to do in all of these areas.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. In other words

Deal with the structural violence I alluded in an editorial.

[Jackpine Radical]

8. That's where the real problem is.

It's not JUST the guns. It's the guns plus the culture of violence as manifested in our Forever War (OMG--Haldeman), hate-spewing wacko media, general institutionalized cruelty….

[H2O Man]

9. A similar study

was conducted by SUNY-Binghamton. My son just finished a class with one of the professors who did the study, and told me about classroom discussions that focused on the same basic concepts found in your OP.

Thanks.

Recommended.