Saturday’s tragic shooting in Arizona still poses more questions than answers. But nearly all of the available reports paint a picture of the alleged gunman, Jared Loughner, as an individual who suffers from severe mental illness.

At a local community college, according to the New York Times, Loughner had a history of outbursts that frightened students and instructors so much that administrators called police—and, eventually, forced him to withdraw. One teacher later told USA Today, “I remember going home and thinking to myself, 'Is he going to bring a weapon to class?'” Meanwhile, multiple media outlets have described the confused rants on Loughner’s apparent websites and home-made videos, in which he talks about everything from reading Mein Kampf to resisting government control.

So far, most of the commentary on the shooting has focused on the role hateful, violence-laced political rhetoric on the right may have played in this incident—not in provoking the shooting but, perhaps, in creating an environment in which such violence seems not quite so out of bounds. There’s also been a lot of talk about the availability of firearms. The Washington Post reports that Loughner legally acquired a Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistol, complete with an extended magazine to hold extra bullets, from a local sporting goods store in November. It's the same gun that, police say, shot Representative Gabrielle Giffords and 17 others in front of the Tuscon Safeway store Saturday morning.

Count me among those who have been worried, for a while, about the violent undercurrent in political speech and, for much longer than that, about the easy availability of guns, particularly in states like Arizona that have notoriously lax gun control laws. Whatever role those factors actually played in this incident—and it’s really too soon to know—I have no problem decrying both. But the role mental health played in this shooting seems a lot clearer, even with the limited information already available. Almost by definition, somebody willing to open fire on a large, unsuspecting crowd has to be deeply disturbed.