Why isn't there being carried out some serious, comprehensive research into the drivers behind school shootings?
well, there is this...
Because the powers that be really REALLY don't want that question to be answered. It's a can of worms they don't want dug up and opened.
Another point is, that who does the research, and how can we trust them to be honest about the research AND their conclusions???
Our CDC (Center for Disease Control) decided quite a few years ago that "gun deaths" were a not only a public health issue, but were a
disease....they did "research" and advocated strongly for gun control. To the point were it took a law being passed, forbidding them to use tax money to advocate for gun control. They could still use the money for research, but NOT for advocating gun control.
The CDC stopped doing research on the issue....
The real problem with any kind of study of these shooting is that there is simply no way to know, for certain, just what is going on inside the minds of the killers. We get no answers from the dead, and those in custody can (and I expect, do) lie.
Each and everyone of them is an individual, and what ever their personal trigger was, it is different from everyone else.
That fact should be blatantly obvious, no matter what factor you look at as a possible cause, you will find literally millions of other people with the same factors in their lives, who do NOT become spree killers, in or out of schools.
What if some study proclaims a "fascination" with guns is the cause (or one of the causes), something most of us here would dismiss, as money down the drain, but what about those who don't? 16 (or 60) million Facebook/twitter lemmings screaming how anyone who is in any way interested in guns is mentally unstable, can have an effect. Democracy (even in a republic) is about numbers more than it is about right and wrong.
You can do a study that "proves" that 99% of these killers ate bread, or a bread product within 30 days of committing the killings. So, based on that, we should ban bread, and bread products!!!
(intentional sarcasm)
My point is that you can study the snot out of the subject, and while you will find a lot of information, and some points of congruity between some of the killers, there are others that are completely outside the profile.
And what can one do with the information, anyway??? With certain exceptions, we cannot (yet) legally imprison or detain adults for crimes that have not yet committed. We cannot force people into treatment, without following due process of law, either.
It doesn't matter if the police get called to the house 29 time, (or 49) until/unless the individual actually does something that violates a law, there is nothing that can be legally done.
This is not a question of someone who is dangerous seeming, it is a question of whether or not that person is actually dangerous, under the standards of current law. And that, my friends is why you cannot reliably stop these killers beforehand. Because they aren't killers until they start shooting, and they can be "normal" enough when evaluated, and turn killer the very next day.
Several of the mass killers in recent years were evaluated, by police (health & wellness check), and by mental health professionals, and found to be no threat. Until, some time later, when they went on a killing spree...
One can argue, that, in order for us to be "safer", that the legal standards that allow us to take action should be lower. There is some merit to this, but there are also HUGE risks.
Risks to liberty, and risks to just being able to live a "normal" life, unless you live by someone else's standard of "normal".
The most difficult argument to prove is proving a negative. When the authorities show up at your door, and because they got a tip, demand you prove you aren't a dangerous wack job, spree killer in waiting, how does one respond? What proof is there that I don't, secretly in my mind desire to kill dozens of children???
There is none. There can BE none. IF we lower the legal standards too much, we risk becoming a society where people are at risk simply because someone anonymously accuses them.
We already see the potential, in divorce cases, where one party falsely accuses the other in order to gain an advantage. When that ex-spouse, ex-girlfriend, or just the guy who's parking spot you took last week can call the cops and get you hauled in for "evaluation" (while they take your guns, as a precaution...) is THAT the kind of society you want? And, especially if we get that kind of society and STILL aren't safe??
Not I.
