Give them guns.
What the fuck do you expect?

I don't know what they expected would happen when they opened the Pandora's Box of Afghanistan and Iraq.

we already opeened a pandora's box when we gave Saddam Hussein money and arms, and did the same with the Taliban.

and we are surprised when things come back and bite us.

If you behave sensibly at home you give others less reason to disrespect you.

I'm really surprised we haven't had more madness like this Muslim army officer.

I think the USA is in a pretty bad place at the moment and this is a sign of this.

The STOP THE WAR co-alition needs to organise another proper anti - war demo for February and try and get a MILLION people to march against ALL these wars and to demand ALL PARTIES commit to removing troops OR we should vote for a party that does this.

Afganistan and Iraq are WORSE than the "Imperial Wars" of the British Empire. Back then they had a belief they were bringing good things to the people they invaded. This time they dont even believe that - they are doing it for purely selfish and unknown reasons.

War is such a waste of lives - of all sides.

We all need to live together in peace. We need to isolate the Extremists and Warmongers. We dont do that by dropping down to their level. We do that by showing love and peace is the right way to live.

The barrell of the gun never brings peace - despite Blair and Brown thinking it does. In their warped world Peace = War. Crazy.

The problem is a simple one. America - and there are many good things about it - has always had a weird relationship with the gun. Not to put to fine a point on it they just love firearms. I think the problem begins with the fact that there has always been an innate paranoia embedded deeply into the psyche of the USA - they started with the English, then the French, went on the Native Americans and the African American, then the the Cubans and the Commies {which, nowadays, includes anyone to the left of Margaret Thatcher} now the "liberals" and the Mexicans.. and {of course} the Muslims. That the US Army Major in this case is himself a Muslim is a side issue and little should be read into that when looking at things from a broad perspective. There's always been someone they've been afraid is about to slaughter them all in their beds. The gun has always been seen as the defence of first choice, and the first, second and last refuge. As such it's become little more than the handy problem solver of first resort in the mindset of what appears to be the whole nation. It's not the availability that's the problem, there are more guns per household in, say, Switzerland. Just look at any pro/anti gun control discussion board on the net and the reaction from a significant part of American contributors is {to coin a phrase} "From my cold, dead hands".
Time will tell what the truth behind this story actually is {well, it probably won't, but we can pretend...}. This man appears to have received a lot of abuse regarding his ethnicity from his peers, which cannot have helped his mental state. That's no excuse, but no one should have to put up with that sort of racism in the Land of the Free. I'm not so sure that it's a case of putting the gun in the hands of a madman. I'd say it's more a case of the wisdom of making it a right protected under the constitution
for people who perhaps shouldn't have them in the first place to possess {and use} those guns for no apparently good reason. What is certain is that the Founding Fathers never envisaged popular gun ownership for the purposes of "self defence"- their abiding principle in establishing what has become known as "the right to bear arms" was to ensure that local militias could call upon a ready supply of part time soldiers rather than establish a full time US Army. Fine for the 1760s, but pretty redundant now. The ongoing perversion of this amendment lies at the heart of the US' gun problems, but it's one they refuse to address.
As I said in my introduction, it's a simple problem. But until the USA takes a different approach to both the general availability of lethal firearms and its inherently abusive attitude toward the responsibilities which should go hand in hand with their ownership the answer will remain much more complicated than its progenitor.
These terrible events will go on until the USA decides to end its long and bloody love affair with the gun.

PS. As I'm about to be labeled as Anti American anyway
may I take issue with this website's reluctance to allow me to spell "defence" in the English way?