Mental illness and shooting people!

Well, that's sort of a descriptive title, but something needs to be clarified; mentally ill people are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators of it!

However, every single time a mass shooting happens in the US, and it happens pretty darn often, people climb over themselves to blame mental illness. There's talk about the mentally ill, psychopaths, schizophrenia, all kinds. Of course, we all know it's pretty much always an attempt at deflecting attention away from the issue of gun control, but let's call the bluff right here.

Let's talk about mental health, then.

What do you actually propose? What do you want done to solve this problem?

Because I'm not letting people get away with just saying "Oh, we need to do more about mental health!", then pissing off and doing absolutely nothing.

Should congress allocate more funds to treating mental health? Should mental health be automatically covered by single payer healthcare? What are you actually proposing, in real terms?

Do you know what it's like to actually suffer from a serious mental illness? To feel that absolutely nobody understands you, because they don't. Heck, I've basically given up on explaining clinical depression, because it's pretty much impossible to make someone understand.

Or do you think all them mad people can just sod off, so you can pretend they don't exist anymore?

 

What most gun rights people want here is for psychologists and any qualified person in a position to form an educated opinion of potential risk would be required to report that to authorities, which would prevent that person from getting federal approval to buy weapons, at least without a further check.

Now that is no going to cover all the risk, but it would be a start.
Part of this is common sense. First, guns don't kill people, any more than spoons make people fat. It is people who pull triggers of guns, but who could also have chosen knives, hammers or any of a thousand things as weapons. Some, like poisons and fire have potential to kill very large numbers. People do it, and you are never going to be able to prevent people from committing crimes- the best you can do is slow them down, and our laws have been doing that. One of the most notable shifts in crime has come with the concealed carry laws becoming common, and that is quite comparable, it correlates very closely.

Cars kill more people than guns. Some times intentionally, sometimes accidentally, but just as dead. If you have no use for a car- they would be just a threat, and it would be logical to such a person to remove them because they don't think they are necessary.

One thing I can tell you. We have a lot of people who are depressed because our country is in constant turmoil with the various political ideologies, every scrap of which gets advertised as the most important. Personal responsibility is being trashed and public blame being promoted. We are generating weak, dependent people who lack the mental tools to take control of their own lives, because of that crap. This convinces the less stable people that they have no chance, that they are victims- and that kind of belief promotes instability and violence. Civility, integrity and respect in society would go a long way towards reducing the number of people about to flip out. Look around the forum and ask yourself how popular those values are. The real problem, the one bigger than mass killings, is mass hysteria; embracing anger and hostility as if it were a cure-all instead of a disease. .

 

That is a common sense solution, yes. But how are people going to know where to get help? How will people actually get help from psychiatrists in the first place?

Because make no mistake; people with mental illnesses very often don't have the faintest idea that they have them.

Cars kill more people than guns. Some times intentionally, sometimes accidentally, but just as dead. If you have no use for a car- they would be just a threat, and it would be logical to such a person to remove them because they don't think they are necessary.[/quote]

Wrong topic, man; this isn't about guns, it's about mental health.

And here we have a shining example of what I mentioned before; people who don't have a flying clue what clinical depression actually is. You need to read up on this, because that view that you have of depression? It's exactly the kind of attitude that ends with people killing themselves.

 

Wrong topic, man; this isn't about guns, it's about mental health.



And here we have a shining example of what I mentioned before; people who don't have a flying clue what clinical depression actually is. You need to read up on this, because that view that you have of depression? It's exactly the kind of attitude that ends with people killing themselves.[/QUOTE]

Mental health has a lot to do with how you think, how you perceive things. How people arrive at the concept of killing randomly invariably goes back to controlling the instrument they choose rather than the person doing it.

Perhaps I don't have a conventional or textbook view of depression, but I have had professional psychologists attend classes I taught on mental discipline, self-management and self-programming. Some asked me how I had done what they considered impossible. I've had more than one person credit me with saving their lives, because they were tired of the fight for self-control of life and and considering suicide. I'm not a psychologist, either- but I never had one criticize what I taught or how I did it; just the opposite. I do fully acknowledge that the problem is a very difficult one to deal with. I quit that long ago, specifically because I demand a higher success rate in what I do, and dealing with people in this area has factors that totally depends on the cooperation of the person you are trying to teach.Too many think you will do it for them, and that isn't possible. I don't believe you "un-depress" anyone, but I do believe you can lead a person out of a dark place if they have the courage to do so.

Now I agree that many people with mental issue have no idea they have mental issues, and they don't seek help. In fact many would be outraged if someone suggested it.. I don't have an answer for that. What I stated about a healthier society was included because if you look at cultures around the world, it becomes pretty clear that values and emotions can be somewhat infectious; that people usually tend to be a lot like what surrounds them- happier around happy people, angrier around angry people. It's also that I believe that many things in recent years have been labeled medical issues by the psychiatric profession when they are more along the lines of behavioral rather than medical- and treating them with drugs does not cure them, it only suppresses emotions. Sadly- I can also say that there is nothing you can do to change the thinking of someone who does not wish to do so. Point being, no matter which approach is taken, it will never solve all the issues.

 

Well, it's clearly time for someone to actually tell you this; you know nothing whatsoever about clinical depression. You don't know anything about the mechanics of it, or the people suffering from it.

And there's some more evidence; you don't know anything about the subject, so I suggest you stop talking about it. "suppresses emotions"? You literally couldn't be farther from the truth if you tried. Depression IS suppressed emotions. Clinical depression isn't feeling a little sad, or whatever wishy-washy nonsense you want to pretend it is so you can feel superior to other people.

 

Including someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder who responds to criticism with Narcissistic rage,

 

Trump's election has enabled those who are mentally ill to act out their impulses.

Just as Trump (who is certifiably mentally ill) is acting out his deranged impulses as POTUS.

 

Link?

Proof?

Evidence?

TIA

 

Interesting that, in a small sample size, The Washington Post found that a bit more than a quarter of the police shooting "victims" had known mental health issues.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/06/30/distraught-people-deadly-results/

I don't think we have any good answers.

 

NO pro or rational person with knowledge of the subject would respond that way. However a person who was diagnosing themselves with depression and insisting that nobody understood them would, blaming all the world for not seeing it their way. It would be necessary for them to act as you have to support what they were telling themselves.

Of course, that is just my opinion. Took me a few minutes to figure out what you were trolling for.

 

This isn't about this violent Alt left.

 

Okay let's understand something here. There are a crap load of mental illnesses and different treatments for each some are a simple chemical imbalances that can be fixed with a pill and a glass of water. others are much more complex and far more difficult. Some pose no risk to self or others, others are dangerous as hell to everyone in reach including the person that has it. Some are obvious some are subtle. Trying to generalize about mental illness is insane the only thing that can be said with any degree of certainty at this point is that ones that are truly dangerous are the one's least likely to seek help once they know the one treating them is likely to cause their fire arms rights to be curtailed.

 

I am not particularly surprised by that, since law enforcement in general doesn't have the faintest idea how to deal with mentally ill individuals.

Of course, there is an extreme lack of urgency in actually dealing with this problem, because it involves us crazy folks, and nobody really gives half a **** about it.

 

And you know this because the lying media told you, and you believed them?
Pathetic!

Steve

 

I honestly don't think that. I think many people do care.

I think that mental health problems are hard to cure; or even just manage. Every person is different. If we stumble on something that worked with one person, it doesn't work for another.

I think that, because of the extreme difficulty these issues pose, many just throw up their arms in surrender. They try not to see it.

(To a certain extent, I have been there. I have been treated for milder depression and addiction issues. I still have them.)

 

Back in the 60's and 70's there was an effort by the left to not incarcerate the mentally ill, largely stemming from the use of lobotomies at the time. The overreaction led to releasing a large number of mentally ill that became homeless. Leftists don't think these things through and end up harming more people. In all honesty the mental health profession doesn't really have a lot of credibility and I wouldn't trust them to do much except incarcerate the mentally ill. It's a problem either way, because who decides a person needs to be incarcerated? Your ex-wife? Your political foe? Pathetic!

Steve

 

Naw the real problem showed up in the eighties when a cabal of patients rights lawyers and assorted other do gooders began closing down state mental institutions they wanted to replace them with group homes but there were two problems, first was NIMBY and second was the essentially undeniable fact that some forms of mental health issues are simply not suited to a group home environment.

 

Mental illness is the go-to diversion for white mass shooters. Anything but acknowledge the guns problem.

 

I just checked my own guns and they are sitting right where I left them last time and not out looking for someone to kill.

Steve

 

You're right; it is difficult. But at this point, there is nothing invested in solving the problem in the US, in spite of all the people going on and on about how all these mass shootings are all about mental illness.

 

There used to be asylums to keep the mentally ill who were a danger to themselves or others. Now, at least in my area, most of them if not all have been closed down. IMO they served an important purpose. I am NOT saying that all mentally ill are a danger. But some are. And the mental health professionals surely have the knowledge to separate those who are dangerous from those who are not (??) In homage to political correctness, we aren't making good, safe decisions, as usual.

 

So assuming that as you seem to claim, mental dysfunction of some sorts has nothing to do with those who suddenly decide to kill large numbers of people they don't even know- exactly what will you blame it on?

It's a cop-out to say "I don't know, but I know it's not that...." Especially given the fact that a certain mental state must exist to allow or disallow extreme behaviors that otherwise would be illogical to any rational person.

Are we talking a diet short on broccoli, or what?

 

The most singularly dangerous mental illness is anti social personality disorder. This is almost certainly what the LV shooter was suffering from.

 

Garyd, I think that is probably spot on. Personally I don't consider that a mental illness- I do consider it a disorder, a condition- often a corruption of the mental discipline that most people have and which gives us self-regulating powers.

It's easy for people to become anti-social when they blame society for what happens in their lives and feel powerless to do anything about it. It's easy to see how that can lead to the idea of striking out, and making general violence justifiable. While the term sociopath is often used in describing this, I've always seen that as a complete indifference to others across the board.

I believe that what would be otherwise normal people, given the a kind of flawed logic, can become similarly indifferent under the right circumstances. I feel that society has been getting permissive, failing to expect people to self-regulate, failing to appreciate those that do, failing to call it when people don't, and often doing things that diminished people's capacity to do so in the first place. .

I once had a friend who was a criminal judge describe accepting personal responsibility as a social vaccine, immunizing us from a great many bad actions that we might otherwise think were acceptable.I think he is right.

 

Well not exactly, the classic case of anti social personality disorder is in certain regards very like an extreme subset of high functioning autism. It isn't about what they perceive society has done to them so much as it is that they simply don't view the rest of society as anything about which to be concerned. They tend to think of other human beings as say a more intelligent species of sheep to be used and abused at their leisure/pleasure.