The things that Obama proposed do include improvements in the mental health system:

From the New York Times:
Proposed Congressional Actions
Requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales, including those by private sellers that currently are exempt.
Reinstating and strengthening the ban on assault weapons that was in place from 1994 to 2004.
Limiting ammunition magazines to 10 rounds.
Banning the possession of armor-piercing bullets by anyone other than members of the military and law enforcement.
Increasing criminal penalties for "straw purchasers," people who pass the required background check to buy a gun on behalf of someone else.
Acting on a $4 billion administration proposal to help keep 15,000 police officers on the street.
Confirming President Obama's nominee for director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Eliminating a restriction that requires the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to allow the importation of weapons that are more than 50 years old.
Financing programs to train more police officers, first responders and school officials on how to respond to active armed attacks.
Provide additional $20 million to help expand the a system that tracks violent deaths across the nation from 18 states to 50 states.
Providing $30 million in grants to states to help schools develop emergency response plans.
Providing financing to expand mental health programs for young people.
Executive actions
Issuing a presidential memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
Addressing unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
Improving incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
Directing the attorney general to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
Proposing a rule making to give law enforcement authorities the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
Publishing a letter from the A.T.F. to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.
Starting a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
Reviewing safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
Issuing a presidential memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.
Releasing a report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and making it widely available to law enforcement authorities.
Nominating an A.T.F. director.
Providing law enforcement authorities, first responders and school officials with proper training for armed attacks situations.
Maximizing enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
Issuing a presidential memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research gun violence.
Directing the attorney general to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenging the private sector to develop innovative technologies.
Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.
Releasing a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.
Providing incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
Developing model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.
Releasing a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.
Finalizing regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within insurance exchanges.
Committing to finalizing mental health parity regulations.
Starting a national dialogue on mental health led by Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, and Arne Duncan, the secretary of education.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...-proposal.html

I still don't think any of it will make a difference. There are some crazy people out there who will get their hands on weapons and who will shoot large numbers of people. That's just how it is.

As for the car thing... people have killed purposely with a car. People have also committed suicide by semi and by train. The latest thing in NYC is to shove people onto subway tracks.

There is no solution. People want a solution, but there isn't one. But personally, some of the scariest people I know have CCWs and that creeps me out. Personally, I can't weigh in on the assault weapon thing because I don't really understand how that is defined. I will never own a gun. I will never touch one. I know I could never pull that trigger and take a life. I'm not mentally capable. What others want to do is up to them. It's anecdotal, but most people I know who own guns (other than for just hunting) are some of the most hot headed people I've ever encountered.

I don't particularly like the concept of executive orders. Not a fan.

What is your objection to them?

I just don't like how they surpass Congress. I know our Congress right now is fairly split and has a habit of not getting much done. But, the point of the three different branches of government is so that one branch doesn't get out of control. I know executive orders are necessary, they just rub me the wrong way sometimes.

Executive Orders exist because as the President he can give orders. It's part of the three branch system. It's the executive branch.

Anyway, too much is made of the mental health angle. Just because someone shoots a lot of people does NOT mean they are mentally ill. SOME shooters are mentally ill, but they are more likely to be completely competent. Jared Loughner was schizophrenic and may have benefitted from mental health services, but there is no proof that the Newtown shooter had any history of mental illness whatsoever. Not only is it problematic for people to even recognize that people are mentally ill, once they have been identified, practitioners have a TERRIBLE track record of determining whether a mentally ill patient is prone to violence. If the patient doesn't specifically come out and say, "I'm going to hurt myself or kill others," it's a crapshoot. The act of shooting people is not a mental illness in and of itself, as much as people would like to think it is. Owning a gun is a more likely indicator of gun violence than mental illness. Saying a discussion of mental illness is more important than a discussion of guns is ridiculous.

Going on a shooting rampage isn't normal. There was someone wrong with Adam Lanza - whether it would be characterized as mental illness, I'm not sure - and he was not right in the head.

That does not mean he had a treatable, definable mental illness that any legislation would do anything about. Criminals do a lot of mean, hateful things. We don't chalk that up to mental illness. People do awful things because they do things at the spur of the moment without thinking about the consequences or because they are selfish and don't care about others. They may lack empathy. That's still not mental illness. It's not because they are schizophrenic or some other diagnosis of mental illness. There is no pill to give them or talk therapy to keep them from doing what they do. You don't have to be "crazy" to kill.

I never said that cars can't be used to kill people. The point is, cars weren't built to kill people. That's not their purpose. A gun's purpose is to kill (or severely injure). Again, apples and oranges.

Hell, if we banned everything that could potentially be used to kill people, there would be no trains, planes, or automobiles, you'd have nothing with which to cut your food, you'd have no medication to cure you when you're sick, and baseball would cease to exist.

That's definitely true.

Another disturbing trend I noticed and several other people I spoke to noted is that in mass shootings, more women and girls tend to be killed than men. :/ The shooter is usually male...make what you will of it :( We know that women are more likely to be the victims of violence in general, but I found this to be equally disturbing.

Also interesting, in a country where gun control is very strict - China - many children were injured in the recent stabbing, but none were killed.

I don't know the solution. I just know that I hate guns and it scares me to know how easily accessible they are to obtain in some states.

There is a big difference between shooting your husband in a spur of the moment fit of rage because you found out he had an affair (just an example), and spending several months, maybe even years, planning a mass massacre.

So it's impossible for someone to go on a rampage at the office (for example) when s/he's lost a job?

I don't think it's as black-and-white as your example is trying to suggest.

After working many years in law enforcement and teaching criminal justice/forensic psychology, my take on it is that it's not so much mental health (i.e. individuals that suffer from mental illness) as it is mental health LAWS.

Take AOII Angel's example saying that unless a person says "I'm going to hurt myself or others...it's a crapshoot". Believe it or not, that doesn't necessarily mean that the system can do anything about it. I have worked so many cases where these individuals DO say things like that and the legal systems hands are tied for one reason or another and cannot make an arrest/prosecute and a crime still occurs. The FBI has come out to say that the majority of mass shooters will tell someone their intentions, nothing is done about it, and thus, the events occur anyway.

The media and proponents of either side of the gun debate tend to muddle the message. It's not that having a mental health issue is a risk factor for violence or that guns in the hands of citizens are a red flag. The focus should be on the laws that protect us should there be a threat of violence in either respect. Even if it is a sane individual that makes a threat.

I am a strong advocate for changing mental health reporting laws, not because all those that suffer from mental illness are an immediate threat, but for the reasons that we need to respond to threats made by those individuals without having to be blocked by laws that protect them versus the overall safety of others.

The kinds of things they use Executive Orders for are not things that typically go through Congress. If you look at those lists, they are different types of tasks. If everything had to go through Congress, nothing would ever get done and government would be even bigger than it is now.

I know those lists are really long, but just to highlight a few:

Reviewing safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
Issuing a presidential memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.
Releasing a report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and making it widely available to law enforcement authorities.
Nominating an A.T.F. director.
Starting a national dialogue on mental health led by Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, and Arne Duncan, the secretary of education.

Most of them are about obtaining more data and sharing more data with people who can use it. The nomination of an ATF director is the President's job, but Congress has to approve it for it to become official. These are not laws, they are daily work activities.

I agree that the laws should not tie your hands on people that are a threat, but making a law that practitioners have to inform the police every time one of their patients says they are having suicidal or homicidal ideation is too much. The VAST majority of these patients are depressed and working through private issues with their therapists that may stop expressing these thoughts if they know that they will be reported to police. The likelihood that this will stop a future mass shooting is unlikely as well since the vast majority of mass shooters are NOT undergoing treatment for mental illness. The people that do commit mass shooting may tell people, but they tell friends, family, etc. That is different than my example of how a therapist knows when a patient will become violent. You can mandate all you want that family turn in their own, but it won't make a difference.

I hate to Godwin a thread, but it's apt. The genocides in Germany, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Syria were/are all carried out by completely sane, power hungry men. We don't give them a pass for their carnage because of mental illness. I think the amount of gruesome death far surpasses any of the mass shootings we'd discuss on this thread, but every bit was due to what humans term "evil." You can't decide everything is because of mental illness because you can't imagine a sane person doing it. Sane people do HORRIBLE things every single day, like abusing children, raping women, murdering each other, etc. The mentally ill are not the cause of all this anguish.