With the recent mass shootings in mind, we suggest that greater institutionalization of some types of mentally ill people would be very much in the interest of both society and the unfortunate individuals themselves. This greater readiness to non-punitively institutionalize those on a trajectory of violence should be targeted at the small subset of the mentally ill who have a high potential for future violence in the considered view of those who know them best: their family and mental health care providers.
Blaming guns for gun violence is as reasonable as blaming alcohol for the destructive way it affects certain people. Just as alcoholism is the problem, not alcohol, the mental illness of the gunmen is the real problem, not the gun. Treat the real cause of gun crime-mental illness.