On the correlation/causation thing that is mentioned in the article: correlation equals causation only if someone either wants to tell us that correlation IS causation or s/he is paranoid.

Some more recent psychological research that is well designed shows that there is no correlation and actually those in experimental group actually showed reduced violence/anger after playing video games.

Obviously in any study there will be confounding variables and other mediating and moderating factors. Very good blog post at a time when it's needed.

Thanks very much

It gets to be far too easy to look for one cause in these cases, especially if that cause happens to be one you are already biased against. But I suspect it helps to stave off the sense of fear and helplessness

of random chance. The fact that the universe is truly random and bad stuff happens to people for no other reason than random chance is hard to live with.

From what I've read, 96% of US shootings are committed by family, or friends of the victim. The odds of being shot randomly seem very low.

However, people themselves are random. Obviously, the primary thing to blame for the Sandy Hook shooting was Adam Lanza himself.

There might be reasons and causes and influencing factors, but he ultimately made the choices that he made.