Having lived almost 6 decades, I can say that really there's no more stress today then there was in the 50's. It's just that the cause of stress has changed from one thing to another.
The greatest problem I see in in the mental health establishment. I don't know exactly when they did it but I beleive it was in the mid 70's that they change the attitude on mental health care. They use to be able to institutionalize patients with very little cause to today's standard of putting them out on the street. Although there were many patients that were mistreated, I think the real reason they closed down a lot of the mental institutions was purely financial.
Looking at what they said about his past mental condition from his childhood to the day of the shootings, this was a person who should have been in a mental hospital.
I have known a few mental cases in my past. Back in 1985, one sunday in October, when a young women came to out gun club I knew right away she had mental problems. She had came out to try out a new 22 carbine rifle. She spent about an hour or more putting out the same paranoid stories that my landlord's daughter (who had been in the mental hospital several times) spouted off all the time.
The old farts made the assumption that she was on drugs. I told them no she was definitely a mental case like my landlord's daughter and shouldn't be running around with a gun (actually 22lr semi-automatic carbine rifle). The head range master got her car license tag and had her name and address from her membership application. He call the state troopers who failed to investigate the complaint. So a few days later on Oct 30, 1985, She entered a mall and started shooting. Her name was Sylvia Seegrist, the springfield mall shooter. Luckily a collge grade student thought she was shooting blanks and captured her. But 3 people died and 7 others were wounded. She turned out to have noted mental problems since she was 15.
Cho like Slyvia probably should have never been left out on the streets.
Anyway, thats how I got to meet a mass murder!!!
Full story:
http://www.crimelibrary.com/notorio...rist/index.html
