Control Guns or the Mentally Ill?

I was taught in high school debate class years ago that to win the debate you had to prove that the solution proposed actually would fix the problem.  Most liberals seem to have skipped that lesson.  At least the comments to Kathleen Parker’s article on gun control seemed to skip that step.  The common element in most of the recent mass shootings was mental illness.  The Columbine shooters were mentally ill according to the FBI.  The Aurora movie theater shooter's psychiatrist reported warned the police that he was homicidal.  The Virginia Tech shooter had a history of mental illness.  Tucson police knew the Gabby Giffords shooter Jared Loughner was delusional.  Newtown shooter Adam Lanza feared his mother was going to commit him.  At least a partial solution to the problem would be to make involuntary commitment easier.  However, easier involuntary commitment would really upset the ACLU, so we must avoid talking about that.  Conservatives have noticed that the gun control solutions liberals propose do not address the problem.  This makes them suspect that the real purpose of these laws is different from what liberals say it is.  I have noticed that whatever the problem under discussion, the liberal solution is more government power.  Liberals have the hammer of big government imposed solutions, so the whole world gets treated like a nail. 

Columbine:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/assessment/2004/04/the_depressive_and_the_psychopath.html

Aurora:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/21/james-holmes-mental-health-colorado_n_1820450.html
Virginia Tech:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/seung-hui-chos-mental-health-records-released/story?id=8278195#.UWWK3TfcYYQ

Gabby Giffords:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57576492/jared-lee-loughner-grew-delusional-in-months-before-tucson-rampage-police-reports-show/

Newtown:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/19/adam-lanza-motive_n_2329508.html

Original Article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-an-impotent-gun-control-solution/2013/04/09/cb6a6770-a153-11e2-9c03-6952ff305f35_story.html?hpid=z3