Actually yeah you can, you can cure it permanently with a loaded gun. A great hypothetical example: schizophrenic crazy with delusions that he must kill innocent people goes into a place and starts to open fire with a gun he would have obtained regardless of whether or not it was legal for him to do so. Armed bystander sees patient in need of assistance, stands up, aims previously concealed handgun and administers the proper dosage of one or more .45 caliber rounds to the schizophrenic's head. Medication takes effect. Schizophrenia cured. Problem solved, many innocent lives saved. You were saying...?
Based on the guy's behavior are you arguing that he wasn't insane and delusional though? He did it all based on some delusion related to a film actress.
Could you get wasted enough to cause you to kill 20 6 years olds?? I sure hope not. The person who killed those children was f'n insane. Not drugged, not drunk... insane.
My point still stands about you sounding like L Ron Hubbard. He made plently of rants of psychologists having some vast conspiracy and lying about their work. He went on to create Scientology because of it. Maybe you should look them up.
Sane people kill, it's the context that's important. Since there is a lot of bouncing around of legal issues here we need to differentiate a few. "Murder" is a legal construct. Its core is that a human being A kills another human being B. But to be "murder" it has many other requirements. Firstly it has to be outside of a legally sanctioned circumstance. So if C is killed by lethal injection by the state it is not called "murder" it is called an "execution". Sane people are involved in the process. It is the killing of a human being. It is not "murder" and it is lawful. Secondly, for a conviction for "murder" there have to be certain other requirements met. The individual who kills must be mentally competent. This is because murder in its common law manifestation requires "malice aforethought" which simply means an intention to kill and a full knowledge of one's actions. But it must not be in the first context I mentioned. A person who is mentally ill and who kills does not, by definition, "murder". The way the thread is going you'd think that mentally ill people kill all the time. They don't. Schizophrenics, for example, are usually frightened of other people and tend to be victims of crime rather than perpetrators. The mentality of the mass killer (serial killer is another issue but look at Berkowitz*, he was convicted of crimes) is interesting in that it's not prima facie going to be a case of mental incompetence, someone could have a really bad temper and just go off and shoot people. They're not insane, they're criminally liable. Anyway, sane people kill, sane people murder; mentally incompetent people kill, they can't, by definition "murder" and therefore are treated as mentally ill and not of a criminal bent. Anyone, given the right circumstances, can kill someone else, killing is not evidence of insanity. *Son of Sam killer
The defenders of the killer here are showing the same line of reasoning that allowed a man who killed his grandmother with a hammer to end up ambushing and killing two firefighters recently. Sometimes society is better off removing some of itself.
Mentally retarded people still act human albeit differently. They also don't generally pose a threat to society. The same goes for autistic people. Most of them aren't a threat to society, although I'm aware that there are some violent ones.
No thanks. I'm not the Tom Cruise type. Sounds too much like a cult to me. But no, I don't believe in psychologists too much. Who would want to go pay someone $300/hr to have them nod and agree with you as you talk and say....."and how did you feel about that?" Heck, I've got plenty of friends for that....and they know me better and give better advise too. Let me ask you a question. Do you believe in psychologists putting millions of kids on powerful drugs for simple things like.....anxiety, slight depression, and occassional outbursts? Do you think any of these drugs could be making the problems worse and actually causing some of these mass shootings? Don't you think it should be examined....since most of them are on the same kinds of drugs?
I wonder why it is the pharmaceutical industry is the one corporate entity that liberals blindly trust to not be motivated by greed at all, and only have their customer's best interest at heart? I think it's just because of the trendy 'science buff' image that a lot of left-wingers take on, and they associate psychology and medications with 'doctors' and 'science', so they're afraid that criticizing the industry makes them look 'anti-science' or whatever.
I guess we'd have to establish some sort of criteria to separate the lucid ones from the ones lacking it to get a more thorough categorization of which ones were actually human and which weren't. Either way, it doesn't matter. As long as they don't pose a threat, no confining measures need to be taken.
Not necessarily. And he WAS on drugs. We'll find out which ones eventually. So was the movie theater shooter. Police said his eyes were dialated and he was limp and unresponsive when they approached him. He was stoned out on drugs. You don't have dialated eyes from merely being "insane."
Not to mention the fact that having an altered state of mind is pretty similar to being insane. In either case, you're not really in control of your actions if the substance is strong enough in effects.
I think all criminals are deranged, if we are to classify only mass shooters as deranged it is a discredit to all the minorities who are oppressed and commit crimes. The shooter was indeed deranged to stand trial, and is deserving of the insanity plea but so is all other violent criminals.
GREAT point!! That......and their target is guns. They aren't even open to examining the drug connection. And yet ALL these child mass shooters were on these powerful drugs....prescribed at an early age. Some have warnings about the chance they might cause homicidal or suicidal tendancies in some young adults. And yet, psychologists seem to be passing them out to millions of kids like candy.
Rich, no one here is defending the killer of those 20 kids. No one. It's simply a discussion of mental illness/insanity/psychosis...... And this has nothing to do w/the killer of the fire fighters. Blame the parole board - they're the ones who released him after only 17 yrs... He should have been locked up forever.......
Well it's obviously exact enough that random moderators on the internet with no medical training can diagnose patients they've never met in five seconds on the internet and be right 100% of the time.
I think it's flawed. If you have the presence of mind to plan w/ great detail... and wear protective gear that may aid you in the event that you encounter resistance, you should lose the unfit plea. Gotta say I've just laughed watching the Aurora shooter play a lost vegetable in court. Where was that incapable guy the night that movie released? Oscar worthy performances aren't being considered at this years Academy awards.
Do you have any medical references that say having the ability to make plans disqualifies all mental illness diagnoses? And this is America. How much planning does it take for a mentally ill person to get their hands on some guns? Not much obviously. Obviously a poster that doesn't know the side effect profile of antipsychotic medications. Anyway the guy can spend his days being spaced out. He is still in jail and that won't change until starts acting more lucid... at which point there will be a trail and a conviction. I don't see what the problem is.
This is an opinion forum, so all I'm leaving here is an opinion... not a compelling case against medical diagnosis. Thing is, I think it takes an especially "off" mind to kill at all. That in mind, I don't really care to attempt and determine who should and shouldn't face imprisonment based on data that doctors have contended. The aurora shooter knew he was doing something wrong, or else he wouldn't have planned for resistance.
That's quite a steaming pile you produced without any visible support! Worldwide only 10% of homicides involve people who have contact with mental health services in the year prior. There's no reason to suppose that the US is signifiantly different, except perhaps that guns are the tool of choice. So the residual 90% of homicides that are committed by sane people needs more attention than this perverse attempt to misdirect the public.
