IT happened AGAIN

So I'm minding my own business - not even watching the news when IT happens again. And it's not like I've been keeping track of events like this because - when this type of thing happens, everyone is supposed to come together to find a "solution" of sorts - or at least confront the problem, i.e. admit that we've got a situation on our hands that keeps giving us nightmares in the form of actual, hideous scenes of carnage. This time it was an NFL player who shot (with a gun) his twenty-two year old girlfriend upwards of nine times in front of his own mother and baby daughter, thereby murdering her before driving over to the stadium in Kansas City to inform his coaches/employers and despondently thank them for all they had done for him, prior to ending his own life - again with a gun. Before this it was the angry guy who killed members of the Sikh community in Wisconsin with a gun ; prior to that it was a mentally deranged young man in Colorado who shot up a movie theater with a gun; before that it was another mentally deranged young man who shot Congresswoman Giffords in the head, killing innocent by-standers, including a little girl, with a gun. And in case anyone is starting to think - "well hey, that about does it for recent gun violence," if I happened to include the not-yet-completely-forgotten Virginia Tech massacres (with assault weapons) or the Fort Hood shootings (with a gun), would that get us thinking about the weird continuity of events? Do you happen to see a pattern developing here, folks? Does anyone think it's time we advocate for a mental stability litmus test of some sort to go along with with waiting periods and back-ground checks? Is that too much "gun control" for us to withstand? Maybe this shouldn't even be spun as a "gun regulation" issue so much as a "mental health" epidemic. Everyone has issues with anger, anxiety, stress and depression - and maybe for some of us, a gun is not the best item to always keep ready-to-hand. I've heard the line "guns don't kill anyone without people pulling the trigger," and I suppose that's true enough, but for those who subscribe to this point of view - just out of curiosity -would you not also agree that "people who happen to be using guns kill people more ruthlessly and effectively than people who are reaching for knives and clubs"? Remember that terrible news story about the insane person who went completely ballistic with a kitchen knife in a public place? Hmmm... I don't remember that one either. Or how about the guy who took a sword and took down several innocent shoppers at Walmart? Nope. That doesn't ring a bell.  How about that bloody domestic dispute where the boyfriend grabbed a chainsaw and just went nuts? Or the one involving a disgruntled ex-employee who showed up to work wielding a 2X4 and proceeded to mow down dozens at a stretch? Strange....I don't remember any such case of random violence in America involving those weapons - or at least nothing that can even approach the no-questions-asked availability of guns - as  the weapon-of-choice that people in America reach for when something inside of them "snaps." But now you're thinking: "fine just go ahead and take my guns away and leave me vulnerable to that day when the jackboots start knocking on my door and dragging me away in the middle of the night. How am I suppose to defend myself against a fascistic governmental raid on my person and property???" My response to this sentiment is twofold: 1) if things have gotten THAT BAD in America, it's time to either emigrate to Australia or build a fall-out shelter in upper Montana (as many have already done) and 2) anyone who thinks that owning a single gun or rifle or stockpile or arsenal of automatic weapons would improve their odds in the event of a standoff with the Feds,  (putting aside for the moment all accusations of paranoia and magical thinking) gives indications of actually believing that a person could shoot their way out of what many neutral observers would call death-by-government-search-and-seizure-firing-squad. I admit it. I don't understand THIS LOGIC...