Any thoughts on policy ideas to stop these kinds of events from happening (other than the standard "gun up" or "gun control")?

I don't think we can start addressing this disturbing trend without admitting the social changes that impact people's perception of firearms. Fifty years ago, most of the male population had at least "working" knowledge of firearms thanks to programs like the Boy Scouts of America and the traditional use of weapons for hunting/sport. Even when I was a kid, it was commonplace for a father to take his son out to shoot an old Ruger .22 around ten or eleven years old.

I recall that then, it was the realization that squeezing the trigger at a watermelon resulted in fruity carnage...rather than the "hollywood" gasp and slow fall...that impacted me the most. From that point on, I knew that a firearm...any firearm...was a lethal tool evoking enormous responsibility.

Now, kids play games where they are "using" a variety of weapons in shockingly realistic detail...movies exhibit a level of bloodshed that may almost be more graphic than reality. The result? Desensitized feelings regarding death coupled with an "unfulfilled" sense of having an experience without the consequences.

Hell, we've got eight year olds playing "First person shooter" games desperate for that "knife kill" needed to make "SGT" on their score card!

Another aspect of this dichotomy is the unrealistic depictions of warfare presented. I played "Call of Duty" once...You know, I'm not a NOLO, but I seriously doubt I could single-handedly capture a Russian sub loaded with SPETZNAZ.

These same players are raised without a sense of discipline or self-actualization...they play these games for hours in the persona of a Green Beret, SEAL or CIA assassin, then go to school and get the "standard harassment package" being told that if they get into a fist fight, they'll have a permanent record.

Result? People with a real messed up sense of their "real self".

Give that person a "reason" to be angry, disenfranchised, whatever...and you turn a maladjusted weirdo into a ticking time bomb.

We "Fix" this by re-instituting a culture of that respects achievement built on discipline...by teaching young people...not containing them. Get the kids out from behind the XBox and out into the woods. Show them the majesty of an eight point ALIVE in the wild...long before you teach them how to turn that life into food. Get them around a camp fire with other kids...teach them how to work as part of a group and stick up for one another...long before they have to defend themselves.

We need to find the root cause and my suspicion is the constant amplification by the media is a big contributor. On one hand they provide fame for the evil bastards looking for it and on the other they trumpet a message of fear of the next one. All to sell ads and fill he dead air between commercials. We saw stuff like this in the late 60s with domestic terrorists, the SLA, Weather Underground and the like. Bombs going off, ROTC units destroyed, banks being robbed and all kinds of crap. The media loved it, the cops all got tons of money for new weapons and the terrorists got publicity. The profile of a terrorist? White, female, Jewish from the upper middle class. How did it end? When the SLA took Patty Hearst and the Hearst newspaper syndicate turned against them, suddenly, it was over and disco began.

Not enough info to provide an opinion/assessment at this point. However, shooting up a crowded space is "generally" a Mental Health type issue, as opposed to a Criminal type issue.

The issue with Mental Health and guns is that our Legal System errs heavily towards Civil Rights (as it should), and therefore how do you "prevent" these type of issues from happening? There is no good answer without violating EVERYONE's Civil Rights in the process.