While I am in complete agreement that there is no need for AR-15's in the general population and that we should have stricker gun laws, I am surprised that is all that people here are focusing on (although I realize that MJ's leans left politically)...
As big an issue here is the fact that there were obvious signs this kid was dangerous. Teachers knew it, kids knew it, the police knew it and so did the FBI. This kid even posted on someone's Youtube video that he wanted to be a "Professional School shooter". Seems like someone should be sued here - this kid should have been locked up with the key thrown away a long time ago.
Problem is, we have too many damn attorneys always talking about the criminal's rights, etc and ignoring the rights of people that end up getting killed. We used to have insane asylums in our country for these type of people. But it is not politically correct to do that anymore - so instead we have a**clowns like this kid killing people. Many of these folks (not all) can be identified prior to the fact. We need to take a hard stand against these type of people. Yes, it may be hard to identify all of them - but this kid was easy to identify.
We are just so soft on crime in our country. In Milwaukee, we have a huge problem of car thefts - where teenagers (some younger than 16) stealing cars and driving at high rates of speed in the city. Many people have been killed by these criminals. But nothing happens to them - they are back out on the streets doing this again and again. Steal a car? Great! But it should be an auto 20 year sentence for doing so.
Here's is the perfect example of this: the stolen thing in Milwaukee has gotten so bad that they did finally pass a law to stop it! See, it is normal in northern climates to start your car up in the winter and let it warm up before getting in and leaving. So, the city thought, this is enticing kids to break the law and steal your car - so they made it illegal to warm up your car! They are basically saying it is the homeowner's actions that are causing this. How crazy is that? This is no different than blaming a woman for wearing sexy clothes - and saying it is her fault that she looked sexy and she enticed someone to rape her. We need to start protecting the innocent and putting the hammer down on the bad people.
Yes, guns are a problem, but our bigger issue is our "we can rehabilitate" attitude. If someone is willing to shoot and kill someone, they cannot be fixed. They should be in jail for life - no parole. We are much too lax on criminals.
And this loony tunes kid - once he made threats against other students, and posted that he wanted to be a professional school shooter, he should have been wisked away to a looney bin and never let out again.
I bet there are 17 people that would be a lot happier had this kid been properly locked up before this occurred. The blame for this incident is partially on the availability of the gun to the kid, but 95% of the blame is on the school and our legal system. The school and students knew this was very likely to happen (or at least had a very high probability of happening). But due to our crazy PC culture, nobody was willing to lock this kid away before it happened.
Sometimes we are surprised by a killer's actions (like Las Vegas). But this one surprised no one, and our lax laws allowed this kid to be out on the street.