I strongly disagree with your assertion that only a small percentage of mass shooters are mentally ill. Don’t confuse the definition of legal insanity with actual mental illness.
As for the mentally ill being more likely to be the victims of violence, I can’t disagree with that. However, just as only a small percentage of physical illnesses are pancreatic cancer, so too are a small percentage of the mentally ill prone to violence. Mental illness is a broad category, just like the term physical illness. Just because you are thinking of the majority of mentally ill who aren’t prone to violence doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
In short, let’s give folks access to good psychologists and psychiatrists rather than argue over semantics.
Yes! Tax guns 1000% if you like, but don’t just throw up your hands and say that the real problem is too hard to tackle so let’s just do this other thing over here instead.
Its not a question of ‘legal insanity’, its a question of whether the perpetrators of this type of violence suffer from a diagnosable mental illness that would have led to treatment and prevention of the violence if detected earlier.
And it turns out this is the case in only a minority of these events.
So the quality of mental health services plays a very small role in preventing these attacks.
And while the quality of mental health services in the western world is extremely poor and in desperate need of reform, it is a great shame that the topic only ever seems to be discussed immediately in the wake of a mass shooting, and then forgotten about soon after.
Not according to the DSM or the law (you know, the things our doctors and our courts, respectively, use to define “mental illness”).
Violence isn’t mental illness. It may be repugnant and unethical, but it isn’t inherently mental illness or every soldier in the world who was on the front lines would be legally (and socially) considered insane (to use an example).
Because committing acts of violence and easy access to guns are two separate issues that you are willfully misunderstanding and conflating as one simple problem to solve.
Because the root cause is an INCREDIBLY difficult and not always successful solution. removing that person’s access to devices purely designed to kill is less so (or it should be if it weren’t for America’s hard on for guns)
lol - not everyone who has a different point of view and challenges your black and white view of the world is a trolley. Think outside the box a little albill.
My final statement is this: banning guns will NOT stop mass violence, only proper treatment can do that. Treat the disease, not the symptom.
I’m still waiting to hear how you manage to define violence as being a form of mental illness instead of simply being primate behavior when neither our legal system nor our medical system defines violence as such. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have various forms of legally recognized (and sanctified) violence.
Just because someone attacks other people, it doesn’t mean they are mentally ill. Sometimes it does. Other times, they might just, for example, be a racist asshole attacking a group they hate.
Hell, when a chimpanzee attacks other chimpanzee as part of group dominance and social patterns, is the first chimpanzee mentally ill?
If a kid punches another kid after the the second mouths off, is the puncher mentally ill?
BTW, if you want to not be perceived as a basically single issue troll account, choosing an icon and commenting on a variety of threads in interesting and meaningful ways (aka “participating in the community”) tends to help.
I’m not the one that said violence is a symptom of mental illness without qualifying it…
So if an abusive husband grabs a knife during an argument with his wife and stabs her, is he mentally ill (legally and medically)? How about if he grabs a gun and shoots?
The DSM doesn’t recognize violence as mental illness, nor does the law. That’s why you can’t use the insanity defense for any violence. There are criteria for it being applied.
It is a cop out to explain violence as “mental illness” instead of being rooted in our culture and basic primate behavior.
Trollin’, trollin’, trollin’,
Though the screen is scrollin’
Watch Xeni controllin’
Boing Boing!
Don’t try to understand ‘em
Just flag, shun, and can ‘em
Soon they’re deleted and banned
My heart’s calculatin’
Mark Frauenfelder’s waitin’
To kick 'em back to Reddit or 4Chan
Move 'em on
Kick 'em out
Boot 'em off
Boing Boiiiinnnng!
Many firearms owners don’t want the conversation turned away, so much as they don’t feel like fighting with other people online when it won’t make a single damn difference long-term.
I own firearms, and I’d like to see more stringent laws. But the loudmouths on both sides drive me up a wall.
Question: Do you think current gun laws are adequate or should there be more and better laws?
I own guns too. Grew up shooting and was given my first rifle for my seventh birthday. That said, I’m pro-gun control, licensing, and registration. As a Californian, any firearms I own are already registered with the state as well.
I’m also pro-zero tolerance for gun violence in the law. Commit a crime with a gun, it is a felony with at least a decade of time added on without the option of parole. No exceptions.
Pistols are tools for killing people. Full stop. Rifles are for killing people or hunting animals. That’s it. Any other uses are secondary and beside the point. We don’t need pistols in the hand of all citizens.
