Very thoughtful and balanced comments from several people on "Weekend All Things Considered" this evening. http://www.npr.org/2012/12/16/167401103/we-have-to-act-on-gun-violence-but-how.

What is clear is that a multifaceted approach is needed.

One thing I will say as a mental health professional; The fact that a person is mentally ill does not make that person dangerous. Mentally Ill is also a nebulous term. There are lots of diagnoses that support the medical necessity for treatment. Legally, anyone with a psychiatric diagnosis identified in the DSM or the ICD could presumably be legally deemed "mentally ill."

I bet 99% of you could come into my office at some point in your lives because you are experiencing some physical signs and symptoms and/or are either having objective difficulty functioning at school, work or with personal relationships and/or are experiencing subjective emotional distress, and there is a psychiatric diagnosis that can be made that will establish the medical necessity for treatment, be it medication, talk therapy or a combination of the two. A diagnosis does not predict the potential for lethality.

There is no medical definition of insanity. There are legal definitions that vary from state to state and that all pertain to criminal justice.

There is also no magic formula or esp by which a clinician (or a family member or a work colleague) can discern that an individual is dangerous, imminently or in the long term.

I won't take the time to hunt it up now, but on Friday evening, again on NPR, a sociologist/criminologist was interviewed who talked about the profile of a mass killer. When asked why that profile could not be used he responded, appropriately, that there are way too many false positives. To paraphrase him, lots of people have the symptoms, but very few have the disease - meaning the vast majority of people who fit the profile would never commit murder, much less mass murder.

I'm all for a better mental health system - would be great if there were the public will in this country to fund it. But a better mental health system and/or background checks ain't gonna do it folks. Gotta get rid of some of the guns available to the general population to truly reduce the risks.