As authorities start building a motive for why Aaron Alexis opened fire at the Washington Navy Yard, killing a dozen people, I’m beginning to believe that the issue of gun control will not rise to the level it has in the wake of previous massacres.

After all, if the deaths of 20 precious children and six educators in Newtown, Conn., couldn’t produce meaningful gun control reforms, I’m believing that nothing will. A dozen innocent victims at a military installation doesn’t hit Americans with quite the emotional impact — as tragic as it was — as the deaths of those babies.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/18/us/navy-yard-shooting-latest-developments/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

With that, I’m guessing security issues will be the red-flag issue that emerges in the wake of Alexis’s rampage.

How does a guy with apparently visible mental anguish keep a security clearance into a highly classified military installation? How do authorities ignore the signals that this individual was “hearing voices” or acting strangely in other ways?

Alexis was a civilian contractor who apparently had clearance to enter the building. He was packing an assault rifle and a shotgun, in addition to a pistol he likely could have concealed, into a common area, where he opened fire from a floor above a crowd gathered below him.

Police reportedly killed Alexis in a fire fight to end the carnage.

But still, the questions must be dealt with head on about how this Fort Worth resident was able to obtain — and then keep — this security clearance. Where are the safeguards?