From a practical standpoint, these beliefs rarely hold up to scrutiny. Not a single high-profile mass shooting in 2018 had to that point been carried out using an illegally obtained weapon. As is often the case in mass shootings, the guns were legally obtained—this is in part what makes them so hard to prevent. The same holds true for accidental shootings. Meanwhile, mental illness is rarely the main causal factor in mass shootings—people who are the most severely disordered lack the capacity to plan complex crimes or are already barred from obtaining firearms.
