Yes Poirot, I'm sure you are right about possible over-medication of some children/adults with Asperger's , but I only know a few of them personally and none have medications for this disorder. I'm not if I wouldn't be one parent that did give them pills if I had an Asperger's afflicted child though!

Today's paper states the killer had been upset that his parents had divorced.
Luckily, we don't have rampant killings perpetrated by all those with Asperger's or all those with divorced parents.
So, as already stated, it is the lax gun laws in the US that allow the few people who are prone to mass murder the means to kill as many as they can, in a short period of time.

As for the comment about the tragedy involving a Chinese madman who knifed all those people recently in China, hands up all those who feel they would rather be in a crowd of people dealing with one knife-wielding man, or one gunman with a machine gun? Yes.

Yes, Jay, I'm not suggesting that children with Aspergers are medicated as a matter of course. The medication becomes an option particularly in an institutional setting where an individual is required to "behave just like everyone else". As you know, many people with Aspergers are highly intelligent, yet have a rather individual outlook and individual interests, sensitivities and behaviours -something which is not compatible with generic-brand classroom requirements.

Sorry, Suze - the above post was to you.

Yeah, but, when you look at America's "gun culture" it's always portrayed as a White Redneck,NRA, Republican and Southern issue when nothing could be further from the truth, the "gun culture" and gun death toll is a non White minority issue, If you're honestly proposing solutions you have to take race into account, statistics for Black offenders and victims throw the whole picture out of whack and can lead to the conclusion that there is a problem across the whole society when around 42% of homicides have a Black perpetrator and Black victims, despite the fact that they are only 13% of the population.
See for yourselves and bear in mind that "White" in FBI and Bureau Of Justice statistics now also includes Mexicans and other South Americans, so the true picture is even further obscured since Latinos commit homicide at three times the rate of Caucasians.
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/race.cfm
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~roos/Courses/grstat502/phillipssp802.pdf
Interactive map of gun crime in the U.S:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2011/sep/27/gun-crime-map-statistics

So a move on "gun culture" is also going to be resisted on the grounds that it's "Racist" since the really dangerous people running around causing mayhem are overwhelmingly Black and South American, their victims are almost exclusively of their own race and any attempt to disarm them is going to lead to an explosion of the Black and South American prison population.
There's no way the Left and minority advocates will go for that and the continual blaming and calls for disarmament of Whites will have little impact on crime overall.

Jay, you always manage to find a racist slant on all topics!

I could be wrong, but I believe all the recent mass gun murders in the US have been committed by young white males?
So, by my reckoning, we should start by disarming all the young white males first then?

No, seriously, The US has finally had enough of these school killings.
I'm very sure real positive changes in their gun laws are soon to come.

Poirot, to my mind, mass murders could only ever be perpetrated by people who have a mental illness.
Most people with mental illnesses have been or are taking anti-anxiety, anti-depressant or anti-psychotic medications.

What comes first then.... the mental illness caused murderous intentions, or the medication-induced murderous intentions?
Why do some severely mentally ill people kill, and others don't then?

Obviously there are other unknown factors involved .
I hope the answer is found soon...