I lived in Japan from 1998-2002. I love that country and have had a continued interest in it since returning to the U.S. But no country is perfect. Following are some mass killings that have occurred there since 1994.

• In two separate Sarin gas attacks, the Aum Shinrikyo cult killed 21 and injured thousands, first in 1994 (Matsumoto) and again in 1995 (the Tokyo subway).
• In 1998, a woman spiked the curry at a public gathering with arsenic, killing 4 and making another 64 attendees seriously ill.  
• In June of 2001, a Japanese man fatally stabbed eight elementary school children. It took all of 10 minutes.
• In 2008, a 25-year-old Japanese man drove a truck into a crowd in Tokyo, leaped out of the cab, and stabbed to death 7 people. The man gave as his reason that he was “tired of living.”
• On New Year’s 2019, a 21-year-old drove a car into a crowd in Tokyo, injuring eight people.

Guns are not widely available in Japan and their possession is heavily regulated. Guns were not used in the crimes listed above; the weapons of choice were poison, moving vehicle, and knife. All were perpetrated by lunatics. In this last respect, they are no different from the mass shootings committed by young American men with guns. Note also that nearly all of the crimes were committed by young men: America is not the only country with a “young man problem” (as I have heard it called).

It is certainly right to restrict the possession of firearms by people with a history of mental illness or criminal activity. We already do so for felons. And, sure, it’s a good idea to require background checks and perhaps even raise the age at which guns may be purchased, but guns alone are not the problem. If guns were the sole problem, then in a nation of 330 million people and maybe 450 million guns, it seems to me that these events would be more frequent. Instead, the majority of firearms-related killings (54%) in 2020 were suicides.

According to an analysis of the data by Pew Research, mass shootings of any kind accounted for a very small number of deaths caused by firearms. In fact, more people were killed unintentionally by firearms (535) in 2020 than were killed in mass shootings in the same year (513). As the report notes, “. . . fatalities in mass shooting incidents in the U.S. account for a small fraction of all gun murders that occur nationwide each year.”

(Aside: Note that mental illness is responsible for two different kinds of gun-related death: suicides and mass shootings. It seems to me that the former—due to the sheer number of cases—offers the greater opportunity to reduce deaths by firearm. Deaths of despair increased when COVID shut the country down, but they were on the rise before that. This is a mental health crisis that doesn’t seem to exercise the CDC nearly as much as whether five-year-olds wear paper masks to school.)

How can we reduce the odds that a boy or young man will commit a mass killing? One thing we can do, since young people are addicted to self-expression on social media, is exploit those media to identify young men at risk and treat them. Start outpatient programs that help them deal with whatever is leading them into the dark. Require them to attend. Remand them to institutions if they refuse or are so challenged by their illness that they cannot be trusted at large. We just spent trillions of dollars (and tried to spend trillions more) to deal with COVID, so our willingness to spend on a good cause is not in question. It should not take nearly that much to get to these boys and help them before they are captured by this evil compulsion. Because they were boys before they were monsters.

This is not a request to confine or punish at-risk boys and then forget about them. Everything can be done in such a way as to keep records sealed, as we already do with juvenile offenders. One commentator, whom I respect greatly, talked about the first-amendment difficulties of “policing speech” on social media. I am not suggesting we jail kids for a few weird tweets. But if a boy is killing animals, taking pot shots at the neighbors, posting disturbing comments and videos about mass murders online—in other words, if the kid is establishing a pattern of behavior that suggests something has gone seriously wrong, I see no problem with sending the police, accompanied by a social worker, to the boy’s house to speak with the guardians, and requiring the kid to sit down for a few sessions with a psychologist. And suspending the child’s right to possess firearms at the psychologist’s recommendation. Check out @BDB’s “Nut with a Gun” for context: I repeat, this is not just a matter of a few bad tweets and some outlandish behavior.

Regarding freedom of speech: if you see a wisp of smoke rising from a campground, you assume it is a campfire and go about your business. The analogy here is to a kid who posts an off-color video or a few tasteless comments: normal teenage boys can be jerks! On the other hand, if you see lots of smoke rising above a suburban neighborhood, you assume something is wrong. The Uvalde killer, the Buffalo killer, and the Highland Park killer were emitting massive, billowing clouds of psychotic smoke well before they committed their atrocities. They gave every evidence of being on a very bad path. I do not think deference to free speech rights permits us to disregard mounting evidence of dangerous psychosis.

Finally, it is our duty to report to the police behavior, including social media posts, that make one suspect a person may be contemplating such a crime. This duty applies to businesses—including social media—as well as to individual citizens. Since Facebook, Twitter, et al. have taken it upon themselves to expel users who express opinions they don’t like, surely they can be trusted to report to the police disturbing posts such as those of the Uvalde and North Highland killers. We are continually encouraged to report suspicious bags sitting alone in an airport: what about suspicious posts on social media? What about an 18-year-old purchasing body armor?