While I absolutely agree that the media is partially responsible for inspiring these shooters with their salacious coverage, I shudder at the suggestion that journalists be told what they can report on and how they can report it. That sounds a little too "behind the iron curtain" for my taste. It's a long shot, and I know it, but what's really lacking is any sense of decency by the public. The media wouldn't air the gory details on a loop if the public didn't sit transfixed to their screens, lapping up every lurid minute of it. And there's no way to legislate decency. It has been tried. The media can only report on information they have available to them, so if the police refuse to release the manifestos, they would stay in an evidence box where they belong. I realize that sometimes they get released directly to a news outlet, but in the cases where they're not...

In any case, I don't think this issue can be pinned on one cause, as much as people (including media outlets) are fond of doing. It's not ONLY a gun control issue, or a mental health issue, or a media issue. They are all contributing factors, but as Hive account@carolkean pointed out, people break laws! No matter what laws get passed to try to rein in the bloodbath, someone will go out and do it anyway. What's broken is the society that keeps producing people whose hatred or illness or whatever delusions they live with tell them that this is the only way to be heard.

I do fervently wish that we could go back to the days when journalistic integrity was the norm, and not the exception. Give us the news without any spin. Sadly, I think those days are long gone and no elected nut-ball can legislate them back.