This needs to done at the federal level

When will the real issue be addressed, which isn't guns, but mental illness.

Criminals will never obey any law that you pass.

Did prohibition work when they banned alcohol? NO.

Drugs are illegal today, did that stop all the drug addicts and people getting high on them? NO.

Passing any gun ban will only disarm the legal person who will no longer be able to defend himself.

Target the problem, the .01% of gun owners who commit these acts are the young generation who are growing up taking prescribed drugs to change their behavior. These drugs all have warnings of side affects, that it may cause them to become violent. This is the only thing that all these mass shooters have in common, they have all taken these mood altering drugs.

I did not read that recent mass shooters had take mind altering drugs. I have read that California bans some guns. At least one federal lawsuit challenging CA gun laws is pending. The Gilroy Garlic Festival shooter could have gotten his guns illegally from various sources in California. He grabbed some guns in Nevada. Obeying laws was not his highest priority. He was a murderer or a crazy person. Maybe both. The law did not matter. But what might have helped head off the Gilroy shooter were cameras not installed at the Garlic Festival. Of course, without cameras, we cannot know much. We don't know how much time passed from his entering by cutting through a fence, whether he was openly carrying a gun and whether he had an accomplice with him. Cameras would not have shot the guy - but might have helped head off the shooting or at least shown law enforcement what had just happened.
Is your home armed with cameras or other devices that can help detect and deter intruders - or at least help stop or capture intruders? Schools should be so armed. Any gun nut who argues otherwise is, well, just a gun nut.

@When will the real

"When will the real issue be addressed, which isn't guns, but mental illness."

One may reasonably feel that these mass killers are "mentally-ill" because what they do seems to normal people to be irrational, but it's more of an alternate way of seeing the world rather than a true mental illness.

These people would have had no problem passing any mental health evaluation a court may have ordered. At least prior to their crime, afterwards, that may be different.

These people have all been highly functional and had the ability to plan and organize their attacks, including efforts to avoid armed resistance.

By any normal definition, these people are not "mentally-ill", they are motivated by a deep desire for the most powerful drug ever invented by humans, fame.

That being said, these mass killers could have been recognized ahead of time and given mental health support and therapy. I do NOT suggest drug therapy, because that was at the core of the mass killer spree during the Clinton Administration.

You don't give psychotropic drugs to young people already living on the edge of mental health.

I guess I would say it's a matter of definitions, how do you define someone as dangerously mentally-ill to force them into therapy in the chance you might prevent a mass killing in public places?

@ will not work!
"Criminals will never obey...Did prohibition work...Drugs are illegal today, did that stop all the drug addicts...Passing any gun ban will only disarm the legal person"

All perfectly good and accurate points, however...

"Target the problem, the .01% of gun owners who commit these acts"

Let's do that math, about 393 million firearms owned by civilians, about 120 million owners, about 180 million people living in homes with firearms...

120,000,000 x 0.01% = 12,000 mass killers? I don't think so.
I would put the percentage at or below 0.0001% of civilian gun-owners.

I'm pretty sure the number of these public places mass killers is closer to 120 total rather than to 12,000. Including all such public places mass killer attacks in USA history. (well, you got to leave out the cases done by government officials against civilians, that number would be way higher)

Then you went into the past with this outdated information:

"are the young generation who are growing up taking prescribed drugs to change their behavior. These drugs all have warnings of side affects, that it may cause them to become violent. This is the only thing that all these mass shooters have in common, they have all taken these mood altering drugs."

That was indeed the truth for the series of mass killers back in the Clinton era. I recall it was very nearly 100% of the mass killers from the 1990s and early 2000s that were either currently on or had recently stopped taking these powerful mind-altering drugs.

These days, the "drug" these young people are seeking is the worst most addictive drug ever invented, FAME.

They feel like nobody's, they believe they are entitled to fame, the news media has told them the easy way to gain lasting fame is to shoot a bunch of people in public places and the media will bestow ultimate fame on anyone who uses an AR-15.

We never learned the lesson of the murders of Lincoln and JFK. The media made those killers famous for all time and the media are doing the same for these mass killers too.

@Gary

Did you see your preferred camera system on "Person of Interest" yet?
The AI is waiting...

I don't object to cameras, I just think the cost of the level of cameras that would be needed to do what you claim could be better spent in other ways that would save more lives. Even camera-crazy UK does not have enough cameras to cover their little island group the way you suggest.

"I did not read that recent mass shooters had take mind altering drugs."

That was the case for pretty much 100% of these mass killers back in the 1990s thru early 2000s. Doctors eventually figured out not to give these drugs to boys or even young men because they will cause a certain percentage of them to become utterly unable to control their violent impulses.

The series of media-caused contagious mass killings, that began under Obama, have to do with fame-seeking.

"I have read that California bans some guns."

Actually, California bans the huge majority of models of guns.
A very tiny percentage of types of handguns are legal to sell or transfer in California.
The California DOJ has an official list of those handguns that are still legal for sale or transfer and that list has gotten smaller every year.
Hundreds of types of rifles and shotguns are no longer legal to sell or transfer.

"At least one federal lawsuit challenging CA gun laws is pending."

Quite a few in fact.

"The Gilroy Garlic Festival shooter could have gotten his guns illegally from various sources in California."

It would have been easier and cheaper for him to buy an actual machine gun from a street drug dealer in Oakland. He could have gotten any sort of guns he wanted illegally.