Another fucking spree shooting. Great.

i really don't think ideology is at the root of any of these shootings. most of these shooters describe feeling isolated and, in various ways, humiliated, like their peers think they are inferior. this psychological profile leads them, imo, to seek out ideologies that make sense of their feelings. (of course, the ideologies can end up reinforcing their negative feelings, or directing them in certain ways)

the ideology is that no one should have access to any fucking gun

yeah i'm with you there

This world bums me out, guns bum me out. I got grossed out last month by some of my pals posting videos of themselves shooting high powered weapons at a shooting range and begged out of a shooting range experience during a bachelor party weekend in vegas to go drink by myself instead. we've made guns into instruments of justice and central to our society in pop culture even though in real life people rarely see them in use and I think their iconography is really inspiring to people who feel wronged, like this dead creep from today. it all sucks.

― nomar, Wednesday, 26 August 2015 19:13 (Yesterday) Permalink

Yeah, I don't know how coherent my own response to this is, really. Just mostly feeling what nomar is feeling. I don't know where this ends. Or if it's just going to continue in perpetuity.

― Herbie Mann's Push Push Pops (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 26 August 2015 19:20 (Yesterday) Permalink

Peter Nickeas, crime reporter for the Chicago Tribune, made a public Facebook post:

The difference between the shooting this morning in Virginia and every other act of gun violence is that the internet had to see the fear on a woman's face as she realized she was about to die.

There is a regularity to violence in urban areas. Today everyone saw what violence looks like, except the victims are usually a little younger and have darker skin. It's not often on tape so the reaction isn't so visceral. This is what violence feels like to people who see it happen, we can now all say, because we've all seen it happen.

In Chicago alone, it happens more than 2,000 times each year. Go to a crime scene and ask kids if they have seen someone shot. And the answer will be, "well, the first time ..." What the Internet is going through right now is almost a rite of passage for kids in urban areas.

So for everyone sitting at work saying, "man, that video messed me up," well, yea. It should mess you up. It's a disgusting thing to watch. For everyone who says "I can't even" or "I need to disengage today," those are normal reactions to exposure to violence. Seek help if seeing people get hurt doesn't bother you.

And, the emotional me wants to grab people by their collars and drag them to a crime scene so they can see the ghostly faces of people who saw it happen lingering around waiting for detectives, or the anger behind someone's eyes while they sit there staring at the body.

The logical me knows that's not right. I can't begrudge someone for being fortunate enough to have never seen or been exposed to violence.

I was stewing on all this on the train this morning. I was (and sort of still am) having a hard time with educated people from nice homes in nice neighborhoods who went to nice schools being outraged by something that is a regular occurrence. (Just this morning, someone shot into a crowd with an automatic weapon on the West side, killing one and wounding three others.)

I thought, to myself, I can't deal with the outrage and the hot takes and the grief, so I'm just going to leave social media for the day. I'm going to transcribe interviews and enjoy the scanners and go to an event for work tonight, maybe have a giant glass of Jameson when I get home and sleep in tomorrow.

And this woman stepped on the train, I think it was at Damen, with a small child in a stroller. She was 9 months old, wore a white bonnet, a blue-and-white striped shirt and had giant brown eyes. Her eyes moved around the train, from face to face, soaking it all in. She had a sort of mischievous grin. (One that my father would call "a shit-eating grin.")

She made faces at me, I'm fairly certain, so I made faces back. The woman who was sitting next to me was waving and seemed to derive great pleasure from seeing the child find delight in new sights and sounds. Innocence personified.

So I go back and forth between - this world is fucked, that it's in someone's head to film a murder and upload it to social media. But there's some good to live for, even if it's just children who haven't yet had to face the reality that everyone today is now facing.

It hurts to think though that this chubby-cheeked child with endless curiosity and eyes that could melt you is going to grow into a world where, yea, seeing violence is sort of normal. And if she lives in any number of areas in this city, it will probably happen sooner than later. A friend, a relative, a loved one.

Kids in urban areas don't have the option to turn off social media if they don't want to see violence. They can't just say, I'm going to stay off Twitter. It's real life, it's not a video on the internet. They stay on the block. It's a relative who was shot, or beat, or stabbed. Or worse, it was them.

Kids see the "oh shit" look on someone's face right before they get shot. And the video doesn't cut off. They hear the gunfire, see the body, see the police, see how the family reacts. Soaking it all up. And we wonder why a percentage of kids end up violent or starving for adult attention when they have to internalize all that anger and grief that the internet, collectively, felt today.

You wouldn't show the videos to your nieces and nephews. You'd go to great pains to prevent it from happening. City violence, any city, is often met with a collective "shrug."
I'm sorry everyone had to see those videos. I am. But also ponder that feeling you have in the pit of your stomach and the effect it might have on someone half your age who doesn't get to look away.

That's terrific.

needed, thank you

that's a fantastic piece - thanks for posting

I was just coming on here to wonder if I was a prude for being weirded out by front pages of the newspapers here being the Doom-like still from the murderer's video with the gun in the shot. I didn't realise that anyone would be actually showing footage on the news?

It's a good post, but "I'm sorry everyone had to see those videos" is bullshit - you don't have to see them.

The NRA, that I've seen, tend to suggest that Blacks With Guns is a reason you should have guns, even if you're a (good, wholesome, middle-class) black person that they like to proudly display as a member - a weaponised version of that Chris Rock sketch.

i guess it's too optimistic to hope that anyone who thinks that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun might change their mind after seeing the shooters' first-person video - it all happens so fast that there's no way anyone could have done anything to intervene

Can someone help me figure out which mental illness these shooters suffer from? As if medication would stop a mass shooting. Why can't anyone come up with a more intelligent, knowledgeable answer for why these things happen? "Mental illness" is just ignorant.

I don't think it's a single illness you can isolate but there does seem to be a similar personality profile among these types. The common denominator seems to be this entitled narcissism

Some of them like james holmes seem more detached from reality than others.

i don't think that using a term as general as "mental illness" as a catch-all for the mindset of people who go on killing sprees is particularly wrong. i mean i assume you need to have something wrong with how you think about the world to go and murder people in cold blood. once we remove that we're into territory of dismissing people as evil.

we prob need to be more open about what constitutes mental illness and how common it is, rather than fencing it off for better or worse.

also the idea that for something to be classed as a mental illness it must have a corresponding form of medication that cures it, that sounds pretty weird.

Can someone help me figure out which mental illness these shooters suffer from?

I think 'America' might be the answer you're looking for.

I suspect pharmaceuticals are more likely a contributing factor to many of these incidents than potentially the solution

I don't think there's a single reason, I mean this dbag was seeking revenge against his former employer. James Holmes, yeah, he was something else. Lanza, he was completely lost. Still can't wrap my head around what he did nor can I think about it without falling into a depressive state

old lunch you forgot to write 'maaaaan' at the end of that sentence.

I hope people could at least hear me strumming my acoustic.

demented obsessive narcissists without easy access to guns means a boring news day for everyone

note that Bryce Williams explicitly identified with Seung-Hui Cho and Klebold/Harris. his motives were definitely different from Lanza and Holmes; for the latter two it's less clear, but the others were fixated on fame/media coverage/making a "statement"/etc.

We’re now averaging more than one mass shooting per day in 2015

another one today:

http://www.wdsu.com/news/local-news/new-orleans/person-in-custody-after-active-shooter-reported-at-mississippi-state-university-officials-say/34948144

well i guess apprehended before he killed anyone but still. less than 24 hours between the two!

also the idea that for something to be classed as a mental illness it must have a corresponding form of medication that cures it, that sounds pretty weird.

But that's the whole idea behind psychiatry. It's also the idea behind the answer that the shooters are "mentally ill."

Saying that someone is mentally ill implies that psychiatrists have all the answers. Which is a laugh, really, how many schizophrenics or obsessive-compulsives still suffer debilitating symptoms while ingesting 5-6 miracle pills a day.

I always thought that in medical terms, "mental illness" means something is wrong with the brain.

Saying that someone is mentally ill implies that psychiatrists have all the answers.

no, it doesn't imply that in any way, actually.

mental illness seems to me to have a pretty wide definition these days, unless the usa is very different. i mean depression or something is under the umbrella of mental illness as far as i know? if you consider the breadth of the term "mental health" then it seems to me "mental illness" must be similarly broad.

Also, is it mentally ill to kill people? Or does a killer just not value human life any more than an animal's?

For example, anti-abortion activists think that abortionists are murderers. If you believe that, then isn't it ethically just to execute them? What makes them any more deserving of life than the meat in your table?

I deplore human suffering and have no desire to take someone's life. I attribute that to my upbringing and not the functioning of my brain. Someone else might not experience empathy as a child.

can sociopaths be treated?

the way your mind works is to do with your upbringing, and many other factors presumably.

an anti-abortion activist who believed in murdering someone who had an abortion would be mentally ill imo.

xpost

In the U.S., mental health is treated with medication. If you seek therapy for grief or trauma, you will be referred to a psychiatrist.

Every day there are stories in the U.S. media saying that the mentally ill are being incarcerated instead of being "treated". What is the treatment? It certainly isn't therapy for the traumas of being poor, minority, or abused. There's no acknowledgment of the role of family life or abuse in these people's lives. If they are not incarcerated, they get medication. That's it.

That's not even close to it. Some get nothing. Some somehow keep it together. Some self-medicate. Some fixate on fetishistic objects, and sometimes those fetishistic objects can kill people quickly.

Mental health care in the US sucks. Gun laws in the US suck. The culture of celebrating a good ass-kicking in the US sucks. Those are all factors in the rise of men shooting lots of people at once in the US, and it is necessary to address all of them. Only one of those factors -- the gun laws -- would be sufficient to reduce the number of such shootings in our lifetimes.

I don't think potential killers are the type to seek mental health treatment, they're too narcissistic for that. Not that psychiatrists or "mental health professionals" can help them. I don't think mental health "professionals" have the ability to prevent crime and I think it is meaningless to say that killers are "mentally ill", given what that term means in the culture.

In the US we have a violent culture that probably encourages gun violence as a solution to an isolated mind that can't relate well to others.

Look at the way this guy in Virginia talked about himself.

In the U.S., mental health is treated with medication. If you seek therapy for grief or trauma, you will be referred to a psychiatrist.

Neither of these statements are true.

there certainly exists a nefarious trend of pill-pushing/over-medicating in USA but that's another thread

TWU otm

2 dead 2 wounded in my home town :(

https://twitter.com/search?q=salinas+shooting&ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Esearch

In the U.S., mental health is treated with medication. If you seek therapy for grief or trauma, you will be referred to a psychiatrist.

Neither of these statements are true.

They're true because I've been told so by mental health professionals. I investigated the matter of treatment for victims of violence. I was told that same stuff by about five professionals I talked to - including a psychiatric nurse.

I don't know why you think I would lie about such a thing.

It is extremely easy to get depression and bipolar medication. You can even get it if you're on public health. You can get it if you lie or exaggerate symptoms.

The same isn't true for victims of violence, PTSD, or grief. Have fun making those phone calls.

I sought therapy for both grief and trauma. I was not referred to a psychiatrist. Ergo, I kinda know what I'm talking about.

Outpatient, non-psychiatric, non-medicated mental health care is considered "routine care" by my insurance company, which is one of the largest in the country.

This is not the thread for this, but please stop making declarative statements about things that are clearly more complicated than you apparently think they are.

Then you have some sort of health insurance that most people can't afford.

Many inner-city people suffer from PTSD but damned if some middle-class therapist will treat them for it. They can get loads of meds for their "mental health" issue at any public clinic.

I was told by more than one therapist that one needs depression meds to go with any counseling, or you don't get counseling. That is how ordinary health plans work for us working-class folks.

even if those statements were true it wouldn't be right to allow them to narrow the definition of the term "mentally ill".

xpost

I M Losted, what you are saying is not universally true. I've gone to public clinics and medication is suggested but ultimately voluntary, never required for psychotherapy and counseling. Have not personally seen such a case. Will admit there's collusion between Big Pharma and psychiatrists, but I haven't yet encountered aggressive behavior from the general practitioners and psychologists you have to see before reaching a psychiatrist in a clinic.

an anti-abortion activist who believed in murdering someone who had an abortion would be mentally ill imo.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/07/science/the-mind-of-those-who-kill-and-kill-themselves.html

I suspect pharmaceuticals are more likely a contributing factor to many of these incidents than potentially the solution

― rip van wanko, Thursday, August 27, 2015 10:55 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Prescription opiods still kill 2x more people than illegal drugs like heroin or cocaine. I'm sure the number of people they harm psychologically is up there with the hard stuff as well.

http://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates

I think we're more likely to fix Big Pharma before the gun laws but who knows.

OTC drugs kill 5x more than cocaine, which is available only from shady ass people in alleyways.

Maybe not OTC but prescription. As in you get them from a counter at Publix.

Okay it's getting a little off-topic, but then again it started because I was reading too many RW gun nut tweets saying we didn't have a gun problem, we had a mental health problem.

Anyway, I live in a working- and lower-class urban community, and we had some traumatizing and violent incidents, during which I, as an activist, did some research on "mental health" services in the community. TWO clinics for poor people within a twenty-square-mile area, and, from phone calls, NO psychologists unless you were solidly middle-class and had a plan to cover it. The two poor people clinics, to whom I was referred to BY THE STATE, strictly offered psychiatric services under the name "mental health". Go to an emergency room because you're distressed, you'll be shot full of meds & prob hospitalized at least a week. Those people don't care if you have grief, trauma or abuse. They exist to treat SICKNESS.

I don't agree with that. At least, I can see the logic in it - if a)you believe in just execution and b)you see abortionists as mass murderers of people (the fetuses we're talking about) then the moral calculus of murdering them to save the lives of countless "innocent" fetuses is easy.

not sure appointing yourself the executioner is the behaviour of someone of sound mind, even if i leave the "believe in just execution" part alone.

Yeah if you believe in a) then you don't really need any justification, you can literally decide who lives and dies, since you define was "just" is.

Also keep in mind once it is out of the womb the child is on it's own NO FREE RIDES =/= a moral foundation rmde