Donna Sabella, PhD, MSN, PMHNP-BC, is a mental health nurse and assistant clinical professor and director of global studies at the Drexel University College of Nursing and Health Professions in Philadelphia. She also coordinates the AJN column Mental Health Matters.

Who’s next? On May 23rd, we were once again forced to witness a scene of senseless violence. Elliot Rodger  stabbed to death three men in his apartment, after which he gunned down two women and a man. Aside from the six murders, he injured 13 people, shooting some of them and hitting others with his car, before apparently shooting himself in his car.

All of this carnage from one lonely, angry, troubled 22-year-old raised in a world of relative privilege—we feel for the victims and their families, and we feel for the Rodger family as well, who appear to have done everything they could to help their son find help for his mental instability and prevent this latest tragedy from unfolding.

While perhaps comforting to family and friends of the slain, our grief and prayers for all involved and our dismay at the other horrific events preceding this one mean little when it comes to preventing the attacks of the next Elliot Rodger.

But I believe we are wrong if we think our outrage and sadness are all we have to […]