Honestly Fox News, really? How is this even considered to be a creditable source? A brief search traces this story back to a right wing fake news site called Bull Elephant.com.
A further search finds that there is very little correlation for the factor between even school shooters. The highest correlation to be found is that they had a domineering mother or father in there lives, were socially awkward and likely abused.
Good effort to deflect the conversation away from gun control.

I'm not convinced lack of a father figure is the issue (and certainly not the only issue, or even the one most likely to be a main cause in this instance), more the lack of positive male role models in general - for boys who do have fathers and those who don't alike.

Except that having a good father is no guarantee that there will be no mental illness, no unsavory influences from other sources. I've heard of a psychopathic child MURDERING their father.

In any case no one is going after "the guns", only certain guns, certain users, in certain contexts. I don't understand why there's such a need to see slippery slopes where they don't exist. Or to see guns as something more than what they are: something for target practice, hunting, and rarely, for self-defense. For those you can still have your . 357 Magnum and 30.06 and your shell re-loader.

As for the argument that guns are some sort of guarantee of freedom ... there are lots of stable democratic republics where even many of the police don't have guns, much less the public.

Lastly ... we already have mentoring / big brother types of programs, and anti-poverty and drug rehabilitation programs that have positive knock-on effects for responsible fathering.

Touchy subject. As a single mom of a male child, I'd say that yes a good father would be the best possible scenario. Simply because of like following like; A tree grows from trees, etc. Now lacking a "good father" figure, you're left with mom, foster home, streets, community. Community working with mom sounds best out of that batch.

Then there's the "perfect 1950s family" with a male and female raising one male child and one female child. But then there's usually hell behind the walls that the rest of us do not see. You don't know someone fully until you've lived with them.

Further we can discuss mental issues. Is a psychopath born or raised? or is it a combination thereof?

There are a lot of factors that go beyond simple "gun control" and way beyond "thoughts and prayers". I think this issue should be broken down to its basics to find a conclusion, but how do we get there when we can't agree on something so small as the definition of a family.

I thought about this a few years ago. The main reason I can see for this is a lack of a good male role model. I agree that women can be good role models too however the difference is that boys aspire to be men and girls aspire to be women. It's the same reason why boys like watching male super heroes and girls like watching female super heroes.

Good male role models become a target for boys to aspire to become. Now that we are slowly phasing out male teachers, any male role model that boys used to have in school is disappearing. They will still be needed in subjects like maths, physics, chemistry and engineering because there just aren't enough female teachers with those types of degrees. This will change soon.

Thanks to modern feminism wanting "equality" we are at the point where more women are graduating school, college, university, etc. Education is generally geared towards women and that's fine. The problem is the phasing out of men.

My school realized this was a problem and did something about it. They talked to the parents committee about how they could start turning boys into men and girls into women by selecting a role model of the same gender for them. Parents would ask their friends, relatives, etc if they would like to mentor their children for 3 years up until the final year of school. This way they would have someone to talk to about their problems and aspirations, someone to confide in. I think this was absolutely brilliant because in Australia it is quite common for parents to get divorced for multiple reasons. On the weekends, students would go out with their mentor to do activities. Gardening, cooking, sailing, shooting, cycling, flying, motorbike riding, camping, etc. Literally anything and everything that the mentor could do to have a good time with their student.

To this day, 5 years after I left that school, I still talk to my mentor and I'm planning on seeing him again in the holidays. He made me want to learn more and travel the world, he was extremely intelligent and also very kindhearted. He listened to everything I had to say and answered every question I had to ask. He shaped who I am today and I am grateful for that.

This is what people don't understand. If we took a logical engineering approach and looked at what some schools with such programs were doing, you could reduce the chances of a shooting immensely. Just provide role models. This is up to the parents and the schools. Do they want to try and prevent a shooting or just cry and scream when the inevitable occurs again.

Sure teachers don't get fantastic salaries but they need to realize, the system is broken and needs to be fixed to produce men, not psychopathic little boys. It's only fair that school helps to educate children both inside and outside of the classroom.

"...Indeed, there is a direct correlation between boys who grow up with absent fathers and boys who drop out of school, who drink, who do drugs, who become delinquent and who wind up in prison.

And who kill their classmates."
(Bolding Mine)

As you know, correlation does not necessarily imply causation.

Does that mean that every boy who grows up without a father is capable of mass murder?

What about boys who grow up with shitty full-time fathers who smack them around every day?

What about boys who grew up in a happy two parent family? Those boys have testosterone too.

What is the proposed solution? Force fathers to be there full time? Put the kids in a home and hope for the best?

So far, the thing I've picked up from this story is that it dodges the obvious questions that are being asked now, and every time this nightmare happens.

Why is it possible for civilians to even buy military grade weapons?

Because it's their right under The Second Amendment?
Not according to the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals.

[nbcnews.com]

How long are we going to let the corrupt so-called leaders in Washington ignore this problem and continue to offer "thoughts and prayers" rather than real solutions?

What are we going to do? A man cannot be made to spend time with someone they don't want to see and a woman cannot be forced to terminate just because a man doesn't want to be a father.