There will be no registry of nut cases on the verge of committing mayhem. It's unimaginable for all of the civil liberty reasons that anyone can come up with. But there are families all over America with grown children or siblings who know that the once-sweet child grew into a troubled teen who resisted help and by early adulthood was unreachable as far as mental health professionals were concerned. These individuals know they're smarter than everyone else, that anyone who tries to tell them what drugs to take or what doctor to see is delusional, and that all of those jobs or classes or places where people are continually turning against them in the end really understood and were on his side.

Pardon me, did I say "his?" Perhaps because I know someone like that, who is beyond the reach of family, who knows in his mind that he knows better than his friends. As long as he hasn't hurt anyone else or himself, he is free to do whatever he wants. When the parents died, anyone who remotely had "control" of this individual was gone. In a place where someone like that is free, and guns are easily obtainable, then family members sit up straight, listen intently anytime there is news of a series of violent assaults by some unknown sniper or intruder. And realize that this time it is some other family who has to suffer the unwanted attention when their sibling or child is the one caught and charged. This is the individual you expect to turn up dead in a parking lot one night after tangling with someone even sicker than he is.

You have to choose - either control the mentally ill people, or control the guns. You can't have them both out there as free radicals and have a safe society. And since you can't control the people (America is too busy incarcerating individuals for non-violent and for small-amount user drug crimes) it would make sense to control the guns.

I won't hold my breath.

SRS