I don't see the murderous actions of mostly deranged young men as a metric of anything other than a trend among deranged young men. As frightening and disturbing as these things are, they are still the actions of very isolated individuals. There is nothing society wide about it. Something like murder rates as a whole going up and down says something about society. These don't because they are individuals taking advantage of some fairly obvious vulnerabilities.
Individuals can be prevented from acting out. That is done every day in prisons and families and everywhere. Individual humans aren't a like cells in a Portuguese man 'o war, each an animal in its own right but acting as a whole. Individuals humans aren't Borg parts. They are individuals and make individual decisions. If they are likely to get frustrated or thumped, they probably won't act in a way that will get them frustrated or thumped. Getting thumped hurts.
It is nice to think about the big picture but what is the object of the big picture thinking? It is to stop those little picture things that hurt. If short sighted superficial tactical things reduce greatly mass shootings, then the object is accomplished.
An object of things done after 9-11 was to prevent attacks of a similar magnitude from happening in the US again. That has been (knock on wood that it continues) accomplished. That isn't a flawed approach. It has worked.
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