We really need to stop conflating criminality with mental health.
Multiple studies have shown that people with mental illness are far more likely to be a victim of crime than a perpetrator.*
Even the imperfect criminal justice system understands this. It is rare to be found not criminally responsible due to mental illness. That has a high burden of proof and involves a really rare subset of people who need a lot of help.
This guy is just an asshole who has bought into the NRA worldview.
And fascism, too. That’s a big one - “well how can that hateful bigot believe that stuff, he must be CRAZY!” No… they believe that stuff because they believe it! Nor are they “dumb” or “dubbed” or “misguided”…
When I moved to a state with lots of gun enthusiasts, I noticed that hardly anyone would ring my doorbell, especially black and brown service vendors. Appointments were missed when I missed their “I am here” text and they just sat on my front porch.
What I can’t figure out about this guy is why/how he manages to combine a downright apocayptic(and, as you note, more or less entirely contrafactual except when self-fulfilled) threat model with the weirdly patchy and perfunctory response of someone who seems to be more serious about indulging in being under threat than in acting like someone who actually is.
So the world is sufficiently menacing that you should shoot first and ask questions later; and yet you still have a doorbell installed and active; and you still responded to someone ringing it and got close enough to determine that you were threatening a kid for ringing the doorbell(a move that would be madness if you were fully serious about your alleged threat model; if you think there’s an attacker ringing the doorbell why would you even think of responding predictably to your doorbell ringing and walk right into their trivial ambush?); you haven’t moved to ignoring the doorbell; or deactivated it and put up a bunch of off-putting signs or some cameras or something.
Is this guy just not the sharpest bulb in the rocket ship? Does he fear the HOA’s bylaws surrounding posted signs even more than he fears super-predators? Is this some sort of weird feeling-threatened-as-recreation thing, analogous to the performance of being persecuted that hard right religious groups often indulge in? Does he just dream about getting his day made?
It’s hard to put my finger on; but it’s as though he’s of two minds about being under threat: simultaneously endorsing a worldview where answering the door is an act of mortal peril; but not actually acting like someone who thinks that answering the door could be the last thing he does.
Yah, your whole post nails the dichotomy of this kind of toxic masculinity.
I think it’s all power fantasy at the end of the day. Deep down he knows he doesn’t live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but he wishes he did. He wants a world where he can go around shotgunning everyone he doesn’t like in the face and it’ll be a noble act of survival instead of murder.
He’s probably powerless in his daily life. Maybe he’s a mid-level employee at a job he doesn’t like, or he’s had to make some tough life choices that have led to a place where he isn’t happy. Just like women have been doing since the beginning of time. The difference being women don’t respond by watching Walking Dead and deciding it’s a documentary.
Delivery drivers ringing doorbells? How old-fashioned.
These days they click on their hand-held thingummy on their way back to their van, once they have left the parcel on my doorstep, and that triggers an email alerting me to the need to go and open my door.
The ones who ring the bell and disappear get a mental brownie point.
The ones who - rarely - ring the bell and wait for me to answer it, get a big smile and effusive thanks.
