As a parent, did he ever notice that his Son was "different"? Did he seek any help for him? Was he possibly one of those parents that told school officials to "stuff it" when they pointed out he had problems when he was in school?
In short, what role did the Dad play in the development of this deranged individual. My guess is that he turned his back whenever the kid disturbed his life activities.
Doesn't schizophrenia come about later, around the age of what the guy was? It sounded like, according to the dad, that this transformation happened relatively recently.
That said, the dad said that the family was worried, not that he'd become a murderer, but that he'd get himself killed. He should have tried to get Ian some help...and take the guns back to his place in the mean time. But like you hinted at, amlevin, he wasn't close to his son at all.
What I think is funny is he calls himself a "Ron Paul libertarian", but then wants the gov't to step in to try and prevent this from happening again. Knowing that the gov't has the Mida's touch (except everything turns to sh!t), he should know better. This was a freak occurrence, and it's a good example of the "spotlight fallacy". Just because something crazy or memorable happened like this, it doesn't necessarily mean that the probability just went up. A conviction for a crime, or involuntary admission into a mental facility, is where we should leave the threshold for taking away someone's rights. We don't need to start doing it for thought crimes and non-convictions. They don't mean anything and they shouldn't mean anything when it comes to taking away someone's right to defend their life. The rest of us just need to take responsibility as well and arm ourselves...as opposed to the supposed hero, who used a barstool and didn't stop anything (the killer just walked past him, he clearly could have continued his spree if he wanted to).
