My tipping point was the clinic’s emergency protocols for what to do in the event someone did enter our clinic with a handgun. The protocols were clear. Immediately notify the psychiatrist on duty. That psychiatrist would approach the gunman and, in a “quiet, non-threatening voice,” ask for his gun. I recalled my medical school classmate who had done that very thing some years earlier at a different mental health clinic. He was shot dead on the spot.

Lawrence H. Climo, MD
October 23, 2019
What Do Mass Murderers Have in Common?
[The “tipping point” he is referring to is when he decided to get and carry a gun.

Yeah, one would think this would be more than enough to tip people over the edge into the realization that the best defense against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. But that’s not the way it plays out in a lot of cases. Some people tip in a different direction.

Aside from the tipping point and direction the doctor has an interesting hypothesis. Perhaps instead of mental illness being the common issue with mass shooters it is frustration:

But, what if there is this other commonality, this frustration goad or tipping point? What if the tipping point for those with urges and obsessions about delivering justice, restoring honor, pride, and the natural order, defending America, destroying evil, and serving patriotism, justice and God, or just the desire to end pain, isolation, insignificance, and loneliness and feel at peace—or at least feel safe and in control—is an overpowering and unbearable frustration? What are the implications?

It’s sounds plausible in a lot of cases. If true, then a partial remedy would involve something different than drugs and/or confinement such as might be the case with true mental illness. It would also point at a different indicator of potential danger.

Ignore his suggestion. He lives in Massachusetts and probably doesn’t realize that firearm licenses aren’t a requirement in free America.—Joe]

Kellermans statistics do not prove that guns cause crime. But neither do Kleck’s statistics prove that guns provide protection. Kellerman’s statistics, even if faultless, provide no justification for a decision to own or use a gun. But neither do Kleck’s statistics provide a justification for owning or carrying a gun.

Admittedly, this sounds strange. Gun owners would like to believe the assertions about Kellerman’s statistics, because we believe they are seriously flawed, but disbelieve the assertions about Kleck’s statistics. Yet asserting that Kleck’s statistics justify owning or carrying a gun commits the same error that asserting that Kellerman’s statistics justify not owning or banning guns. Both treat the gun as an agent, with independent power to effect results. In both cases, the gun has become a force, like a chemical, a drug or microbe, with independent power to cause results apart from our decisions, our character and purpose.

People, we are the agents. Guns are inanimate tools that serve our purposes.

Jeff Snyder
2001
Nation of Cowards, You’re Doing This Because of the Numbers? page 97.
[He goes on to say, paraphrasing some, that the numbers prove guns are useful for criminal acts and the numbers prove guns are useful for self-defense. They don’t “cause” violence or “result” in self-defense.—Joe]