I wonder which video game contributed to the corruption of this shooter?
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Every single household in the entire world has at least one knife.
You can kill with a knife, just as you can kill with a rope, hammer, or plastic bag.
But the death toll from knives as a proportion of households in the world?
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Draconian gun laws are fine by me.
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The biggest issue many people have with UBC is that every single proposed implementation of âUniversal Background Checksâ looks a lot more like what Illinois has, universal gun owner registration, or even like what Chicago used to have, universal firearms registration.
While it is possible to implement universal background checks in a manner which doesnât result in a database of guns and/or their owners, the bills offered donât go that route, instead proposing to funnel all private sales through FFLs and (usually) recording details including make, model and serial # in the FFLs bound book.
You want UBC? Fine, open up NICS access to everybody, and provide a mechanism for transactions to proceed when NICS is down (which happens quite often), and some disincentive to keep the feds from just returning âDelayedâ for everybody.
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why are you scared of a database? YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL.
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No doubt, but there are plenty of people who think itâs reality. This language has a long history that was once mainstream thought and continues to be common knowledge in some places. There are still somewhat mainstream ideas that say, âwell, I understand this and kind of agree, but it goes too farâŚâ
I dunno, since Iâm not a psychologist, I wouldnât be confident in making that assertion⌠maybe you are? Still, at a distanceâŚ
Me neither, generally speaking.
But again, who says? In our other discussion, weâre hashing out whether or not we can get to a post-scarcity economy - was Roddenberry delusional for thinking humanity could read that point? What makes utopian political ideologies delusional in the first place?
Yes, kind of my point here. 
Once we decide that X is a mental illness, do we feel obligated as a society to lock people up for their beliefs?
There is also a less complex definition of mental illness here and thatâs the legal one. I donât think he falls under that category, and at the end of the day, thatâs probably the one that matters. Clearly he understood that shooting 9 people for being black was a crime and he would be held liable for that. Maybe this is something weâll have to disagree on!
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Havenât read all 244 posts butâŚhas everyone missed the fact that this was not an âactive shooterâ situation? Vincente Montano was carrying a pellet gun, a fake bomb, and a (real) hatchet and pepper spray. Reported as missing on August 3, heâd been committed for mental health care 4 times (2004 & 2007). The guy was ill, but not sick with Glockitis or Colt Syndrome.
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Our background check system doesnât work that well. From Wikipedia re: Dylan Roof:
Roof personally purchased the gun used in the shooting from a retail gun store in Charleston,[46] using money given to him on his birthday.[15] The Washington Post reported on July 10, 2015, that FBI Director James Comey said that Roof âwas able to purchase the gun used in the attack only because of lapses in the FBIâs background-check systemâ.
Seung-Hui Cho also should have been prevented from purchasing firearms, but the state hadnât reported his involuntary commitment to NICS.
Will be interesting to find out if he had tried to get his hands on a real gun.
It was noted up-thread. I think itâs the perpetratorâs choice of venue that grabbed Xeniâs attention.
Quite a few people actually 
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Well that seems like a balanced point.
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But again, who says? In our other discussion, weâre hashing out whether or not we can get to a post-scarcity economy - was Roddenberry delusional for thinking humanity could read that point? What makes utopian political ideologies delusional in the first place?
Roddenberry was a creator of fiction. Lots of utopian ideologies are interesting, and some could possibly have real world positive effects, itâs when you start viewing them as absolute truth that it crosses over into the delusional (whether thatâs marxism, libertarianism, racialism, christianity, islam, radical feminism or whatever). They become dangerously delusional when youâre willing to kill someone because of them.
Once we decide that X is a mental illness, do we feel obligated as a society to lock people up for their beliefs?
No, the common standard seems to be whether theyâre deemed as a threat to themselves or others. This is something that has to be evaluated on an individual basis as well, and usually is only something that becomes apparent after the fact. Preventative measures are far more important than treatment.
There is also a less complex definition of mental illness here and thatâs the legal one. I donât think he falls under that category, and at the end of the day, thatâs probably the one that matters. Clearly he understood that shooting 9 people for being black was a crime and he would be held liable for that. Maybe this is something weâll have to disagree on!
It might be the one that matters for achieving a conviction, but that doesnât mean itâs the right one for the betterment of society.
Donât you worry, enough casual mass-murder will get us there, hopefully sooner than later.
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The confusion arises when the highly trained psychiatric professional gets âhealthyâ mixed up with ânormalâ. Anyone who is trying to become less crazy must confront this choice. You can try to be healthy OR you can try to be normal. There is no intersection in this diagram.
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More of a pop culture and newsmedia issue these days, beyond the DSM being designed around the needs of insurance companies.
With public health being more of a concern than capitalism, weâd be better off.
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Before you wrote this, did you take any time to ask yourself:
- How likely are mentally ill people to commit violent crimes relative the rest of the population?
- Given a violent criminal, how likely is it that the person is mentally ill (a subtly different question with a potentially very different answer)?
- Is there any moral valence associated to the claim that mentally ill people â folks who already have a lot of problems and are heavily stigmatized in our society â should be more closely associated to the concept of mass murder than they already are?
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Are you sure? Could you provide some evidence? The vast majority of failed attempted suicides never try again, and even small barriers to, say, potential bridge jumpers substantially reduce the number of suicides.
I have this sneaking suspicion youâre just pulling all your claims out of your ass, and since youâre doing so in the service of defaming the mentally ill I have some reservations about your position.
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I could not agree more with this statement. You are ON the money, Phrenological.
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You seem to be assuming that any ideologically motivated killing is the result of mental illness.
Thatâs âlegitimateâ in the sense that we can define âmental illnessâ any way we want.
But is it fair to, e.g., schizophrenics or manic depressives to saddle them with the same labels and assumptions we do for ISIS or the KKK? Or should we make the distinction between ideologically motivated killings and killings due to mental illness (i.e. killings where the perpetrator was determined not to be in control of their faculties or incapable of telling right from wrong)?
I think itâs very fucking obvious that there are both practical and moral reasons for making such a distinction, and I really have to wonder why anyone would try to equate all kinds of ideology with all kinds of mental illness.
Itâs problematic enough that youâre grouping narcissistic personality disorder (which was just âbeing an assholeâ until about 5 years ago) with, say, schizophrenia or chronic depression.
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