This is a rush transcript from "The Five," December 18, 2012. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GREG GUTFELD, CO-HOST: So in times of tragedy, I know that opinions or even facts don't help the suffering. Saying gun violence dropped over 40 years or that schools are safer than ever -- that means very little to people in shock. It's just noise. To me, it's like gun-free zones. They sound really great, but only among the media who worked in gun-protected zones. It's easy to champion gun free behind a Glock.

Fort Hood, the dead weren't children but they were warriors. But they were killed in a gun-free zone in Army base. You think the coward Hasan didn't know that.

I wonder if those who believe in gun-free zones would announce their habitat as gun-free. Evil seeks the vulnerable. It looks to kick between the armor.

And so, I ask, why can't a school be protected as 30 Rock? Is a talking head more valuable than a child?

But what do I know? I'm a talking head. I know nothing.

As rare as these horrible events are, evil will always be. Addressing mental health issues helps, as well as our culture's obsession with evil. What's up with that?

And maybe the media eggs this on, whispering immortality to the loser. Each creep has the same M.O., yet we report it like it's new. Maybe it's time to ponder instead of pontificating. Nobody is listening anyway, because they've heard it all before.

And tragically, we'll hear it all again.

So, Dana, here's my question. It seems like we're all recycling the same arguments when something like this happens. Do you think we'll ever make progress on this, or is still always going to be us versus them?

DANA PERINO, CO-HOST: I think this one might be different. I think that the innocence of the lives who were taken, the young tenderness of the age has made people think, OK, what can we do? Aside from some places where the talk has only been about gun control, there has been a building sense of anxiety about what we are not doing to help provide for families that have a loved one that is mentally ill and needs serious help before they do harm to nobody else.

So, I hope and I think and I'm prepared to help out, that I think that this one could be different. That there might actually be something that we can do, not all the answers, but certainly about the piece of helping prevent this from happening again.

GUTFELD: Yes.

Andrea, there seems like, finally, we are talking about different variables -- everything from mental health issues, to school security, to areas of gun control where previously we were only focused on gun control. Does that mean there's progress?

ANDREA TANTAROS, CO-HOST: I don't know. As hopeful that I am that Dana is right it seems we have one side shouting their point, the other side shouting their points. You have the comedians then making fun of one side, usually conservatives for trying to defend their points after there's a waiting period.

I do think so that there should be a waiting period. They joke about waiting period for guns. There needs to be some time before everybody starts jumping up and down about this.

And I do think, you know, Congress is there to do a lot of things. Not just handle the fiscal cliff. Mental illness is an issue that they rarely talk about.

This is an opportunity. We know that it never happens. Someone will say, this is a great opportunity to talk about mental illness, and then we move to gun control.

I do hope this time -- I know it's Christmas time, but I do hope in the weeks that follow up after the New Year, people will actually start to have a discussion -- and listen, not yell at the other side.

GUTFELD: Bob, you talk about guns, and mental illness and alcoholism, and how there should be some kind of screening. Do you think that because we use mental illness, the topic, so generally, that it spreads so thin that we don't actually catch the people that really need help?

BOB BECKEL, CO-HOST: Well, I don't know. But I think in this instance, more than any of the others that I can recall, the topic of mental health has been more much prevalent than it had been before.

GUTFELD: Right.

BECKEL: It was generally gun control. And I am one that pushed that very hard.

GUTFELD: Right.

BECKEL: But the mental health question is one that's serious and real. And we know that the funds have been cut back in the state -- local and the federal level for that. It's got to be part and parcel of this.

And this is also a time when people are starting to raise questions about the video games --

GUTFELD: Right.

BECKEL: -- and the way people communicate, the way young people communicate what they're seeing.

So maybe this is a broader conversation. How that ends up though being something that's tangible is where I have a hard time figuring out.

GUTFELD: Yes. And I think everybody does.

Eric, what do you -- what do you make of this? I mean, I look at this and I see that every -- there is one linkage to all of these catastrophes as they get more and more gruesome, is that they tend to build up on each other. And they tend to involve these loners.

I mean, you know --

ERIC BOLLING, CO-HOST: Yes.

GUTFELD: -- I don't like talking about them because to me, they are losers. But we cannot avoid that.

BOLLING: Right. I made the point last night. And I'm not going to mention the guy's name. Let's call him the shooter.

I made a point last night, I said I don't think this is the time or the place for the gun discussion. I'm going to stand by that.

It's a whole host of things. It's mental health, it's guns, it's video games. It's the culture around what our children are brought up, the way the children are brought up, that the violence is OK. You can blow away a bunch of people if you do it on TV, or if you do it on a video game.

It's religion. It's a breakdown of the family values. It's the nuclear family. It's a whole host of things. And there has to be meaningful discussion, not all of it, including guns.

I just can't do it right now and it's just not time. We have two more burials going on today. When we are through with some of these things and it's time to move on to the discussion. Bob and I and you -- the left will have this massive discussion over what is right. Whether the Second Amendment should stay intact the way it is, or that things should change from the Second Amendment.