The mass shootings perpetrated by troubled young men across the USA, most recently in Santa Barbara, California in May, 2014, have drawn the scrutiny of both the mental health system and the gun control laws as an anguished nation asks how these tragedies could have been prevented. There are no easy answers. While all the shooters exhibited disturbing behaviour before their attacks, their encounters with the mental health system run the gamut: Elliot Rodger, who fatally stabbed three people and shot and killed three others in the Santa Barbara incident, had been taken to see specialists as early as elementary school, whereas Jared Loughner, who killed nine people in Tucson, Arizona, purportedly began to manifest disturbing behaviour only as he approached legal adulthood, at which point he could no longer be compelled by his parents to get help....
Language: en
LA - en SN - 2215-0374 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2215-0366(14)70382-7 ID - ref1 ER -