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Originally Posted by packs
People are mentally ill in this country and they obviously are feeling like they're out of options. Being driven to kill random strangers and as many as you can at once is a pretty good indicator that these people feel ostracized from society and are now so angry with being the outcast that they are determined to kill society at large.
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Packs, that's not how their thinking works. First, they don't generally believe they are mentally ill, so they aren't angry over being 'out of options'. With young men, the first big manic break typically manifests itself as irrational anger, thus the violence. The irrational anger can certainly be directed at a person or people, and have some basis in their pre-break reality, but it is a product of the illness itself, not a response to our reaction to it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by packs
Mental illness does not make a person "evil." I'm so tired of seeing people like the shooter in Newtown and the Aurora shooter labeled "evil." They are mentally ill. If the country had a stable healthcare system that encouraged treatment rather than making healthcare so expensive that people seek it out only at extreme moments in their lives, and then are turned away as people who don't need help or "are just blowing off steam" I believe that these people could get the help they need.
I'm not making excuses for this kind of behavior. But it doesn't boil down to "good" people and "bad" people. And if you take a gun out of someone's hand you're putting something else in it. You need to find a way to keep them from wanting either if you're going to solve anything. Let's see mental health services encouraged. Let's make it easier to access mental health professionals. Let's stop labeling anyone who has special mental health needs "crazy." Let's stop making them feel like they aren't a part of our lives.
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Thanks for this well-thought out post. The response I always get when I present such an argument, is that "we can't fix everyone". No, we can't fix everyone, so we don't attempt to fix ANYONE? Hard to imagine where society would be if we took that approach to everything we do. But I do understand - people feel that our resources would be better spent somewhere else. I can't argue with that logic, as there's always a trade-off, and we might have some more wars coming up.