Reactionism in America and Jared Lee Loughner

As horrific and unbelievable as the shootings in Arizona have been, I have to say, sadly, that nothing could have prevented them.
"What??!!" you say?
Rachel Maddow seems to make a connection between his drug use and the shootings. She also seems to make a link between his troubles at Pima CC and the shootings, indicating that these were warning signs that could have or should have been used to keep him from buying a gun and ammo.
I hate to sound so callous, but I have to quote Sex and the City:
"Coulda, woulda, shoulda!"
Look, the JLL's of the world are always going to be out there. Sure, we need to try and get to them and either lock them away or drug them silly before they get to hurting others, but in the end, it is an impossible task to get them all.
The reactionism on the TV now shows a hue and cry for new laws: Ban guns! Ban large ammo clips! Lock nutcases away!!
We can't ban guns in this country. We just can't. To do it would result in revolution. So suggesting a gun ban will go nowhere except to anger people, many of whom might be nuts themselves, just waiting for the government to come get them.
Banning large clips is also not a solution. Many of the mass shootings have involved a shooter with multiple firearms and many clips of ammo. So, duh, it is useless to outlaw large-capacity clips. Bans are not the cure. Even if there were no guns, nuts would use cars, trucks, tanks, planes, bombs, knives, swords, and even simple sticks and stones to achieve their ends. Plus, banning guns will not remove them from the black market, where criminals go shopping.
And should we ban drugs? Yeah, because that has been so effective. Are pot smokers more likely to go postal? Come on. If that were true, we'd have seen way more mass-shootings than we have.
Would a gun background check flag someone like JLL after he was expelled? No. He was never adjudicated mentally defective. If we loosen that category in order to keep people from owning guns, it will only make it more of a hassle to get a gun and might actually keep people from ever even going to a psychologist or to therapy for fear of being flagged by the system because they sought counseling for grief or for anxiety or an eating disorder.
Becoming paranoid about odd behavior and reporting every abnormal action will only lead to more headaches than solutions, and steal away ever more of our independence and liberty for the illusion of safety.
What we ought to do; what we NEED to do is mourn the dead, be there for the families of the victims, hope and work to make the injured well again, and realize that this kind of thing is virtually inevitable.
Just as we cannot stop natural disasters, we cannot stop people from going postal.
Just as we can help to predict and detect natural disasters to some small degree, we can work to make mental health care and evaluation more available and less negatively stigmatized to all.
People need to wake up and smell the coffee.
The occasional nut going postal will always happen, and there is nothing we can do to completely eradicate it.
Heck, if anything, I am wondering if maybe more people ought to carry guns to shoot the random nut-job before he can do more damage --which is what makes me wonder about the shootings in AZ, a supposedly gun-crazy state.
Where were all the gun-toting citizenry?
Finally, the one common denominator in all these shootings is that they are committed by human beings. Humans are the problem, not the weapons.
How can we better educate people? How can we provide a more nurturing environment for people? No one wants to talk about this because it involves a lot more personal responsibility than people want to admit.
In the end, this reactionary cycle will pass, just as it always has. Legislation will be introduced to placate the whiners, and in the end, nothing significant will change.
Perhaps what I will take away from this is that I need to get my concealed-carry permit to protect myself if ever I happen to be in the path of a postal nut-job.
And while I'm at it, maybe I should never fly again or drive a car, or leave my house!!
Ridiculous.