This hits home so close for me. What he did was cowardly and a disgrace to his service and the people whom he served. poor innocent people died and there is no excuse for that.
First of all, we had a much better family system of support during the WWII era. there was less access to guns and drugs and we had much better government services and support for vets. WWII was a righteous and clearly good vs. evil war. our recent wars have been more politically motivated, more prolonged with no end goals. no one questioned why we fought in WWII but we have had opposition to most of the other ones we fought, especially the recent ones.
Second of all, there are so many failure points here that I don't even know where to start. most important one, he shouldn't have had access to firearms, cause as you said people can get messed up. apparently, he had an incident with the law enforcement and they checked on him and they let him go after they figured out he had a mental issue. this kid was obviously gone but our system shares the blame and the shame with him. if we had a solid background check and a database that was available to all of the LE folks, this could have been maybe prevented. VA, DOJ, local Police, and other agencies all need to be able to communicate and share information.
lastly, this doesn't tarnish the MC, it's a stain on our system as a whole (politicians, gun nuts, health care system that cares more about profits than caring and ...)
