Is it a Mental Health Problem - or an excuse?

joG said:

If a crazy doesn’t have a gun he has to use a truck.

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A truck and a gun are not the same thing. That particular comparison is really poor.

haymarket said:

President Trump in Japan has proclaimed that the killing yesterday in Texas is a mental health problem - not a gun problem. And this echoes what we have heard in incident after incident involving mass killings with guns for many years now.

A simple question: is that just the excuse of the moment to pretend we do not have to do anything about guns or is it a serious statement that is true and valid?

And if it is true and laid, how come nothing is done about this so called mental health problem while these incidents continue to happen?

In other words - what is our society going to do about this mental health problem and why have we done nothing other than say this is the problem?

Don't problems deserve some sort of plan of action to fix the problem? So why don't we have one?

And what is it that is so special about the USA that we have all these mental health problems causing us to have 31% of the mass shootings in the world while we have just 5% of the worlds population? Is this a nation which makes people go crazy out of all proportion to our actual numbers?

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I believe mass shooters are mentally ill. I think the media gets some of the blame for these mass shootings by focusing far too much on these shootings. Hours and days on end. Speculating, looking for ideological reasons for these massacres and trying to find reasons far beyond mental illness for their actions.

Those whose answer is gun confiscation are wasting their air. That is never going to happen here.

We should focus on keeping guns out of the hands of these people in whatever ways we can. It won’t be easy, and the solution will make many people unhappy, but we’ve got to find a way. This phenom isn’t going to go away. It is going to get worse.

CaptainCourtesy said:

I do not believe that Americans are more mentally ill than folks from other countries. That's an illogical argument. However, when combining a similar level of mental illness to a significantly increased level of access to firearms, what we get is what we have: more shootings. In the context of this thread, I offer the same solution that I have suggested in the past. In this country, we are encouraged to get yearly physicals; if a problem is noted, treatment is recommended. The same protocol should be in place for one's mental health; yearly mental health "physicals". If a problem is noted, treatment is recommended. If significant issues are noted, therapists have the authority to commit, a duty to warn, and/or to restrict access to weapons. Would this solve the problem? No, but it could significantly reduce some of these incidents.

A secondary piece to this revolves around healthcare. Many healthcare plans do not offer the same level of coverage for mental health services that they offer for physical health services. It needs to be mandated that both services need to be equal.

Several of those who have perpetrated these tragedies have appeared mentally ill. It is possible that some of these incidents could have been avoided with one or both of the above in place.

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A society can be disturbed even if most of those who make it up are sane. For example to say that Saudi Arabian society is criminally insane does not imply that all Saudi citizens have a mental illness.

MaggieD said:

I believe mass shooters are mentally ill. I think the media gets some of the blame for these mass shootings by focusing far too much on these shootings. Hours and days on end. Speculating, looking for ideological reasons for these massacres and trying to find reasons far beyond mental illness for their actions.

Those whose answer is gun confiscation are wasting their air. That is never going to happen here.

We should focus on keeping guns out of the hands of these people in whatever ways we can. It won’t be easy, and the solution will make many people unhappy, but we’ve got to find a way. This phenom isn’t going to go away. It is going to get worse.

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I think mass shooters have abnormal personalities. The psychiatric consensus is, rightly or wrongly, that personality defects are not mental illnesses. In the UK - I'm not sure about th US - being a psychopath, for example, will not get one off a criminal charge.

MaggieD said:

I believe mass shooters are mentally ill. I think the media gets some of the blame for these mass shootings by focusing far too much on these shootings. Hours and days on end. Speculating, looking for ideological reasons for these massacres and trying to find reasons far beyond mental illness for their actions.

Those whose answer is gun confiscation are wasting their air. That is never going to happen here.

We should focus on keeping guns out of the hands of these people in whatever ways we can. It won’t be easy, and the solution will make many people unhappy, but we’ve got to find a way. This phenom isn’t going to go away. It is going to get worse.

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Does American gun culture and the glorification of guns and violence bear some of the blame also?

haymarket said:

Does American gun culture and the glorification of guns and violence bear some of the blame also?

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There’s blame enough to go all around. Yes.

haymarket said:

President Trump in Japan has proclaimed that the killing yesterday in Texas is a mental health problem - not a gun problem. And this echoes what we have heard in incident after incident involving mass killings with guns for many years now.

A simple question: is that just the excuse of the moment to pretend we do not have to do anything about guns or is it a serious statement that is true and valid?

And if it is true and laid, how come nothing is done about this so called mental health problem while these incidents continue to happen?

In other words - what is our society going to do about this mental health problem and why have we done nothing other than say this is the problem?

Don't problems deserve some sort of plan of action to fix the problem? So why don't we have one?

And what is it that is so special about the USA that we have all these mental health problems causing us to have 31% of the mass shootings in the world while we have just 5% of the worlds population? Is this a nation which makes people go crazy out of all proportion to our actual numbers?

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I don't think it's an excuse, but if it's the problem then as a citizen I'd be asking what the government is doing about it. I'm not for preventing responsible gun users from doing what's well within their rights to do. But it also seems more than a little irresponsible to say "mental health issues", throw you hands up, and walk away without doing anything. Clearly there's a problem, if guns aren't the problem, do something about what is. Mental health issues are always neglected by governments, due in part to the stigma attached to mental health issues. Maybe if a few more people get killed because of "mental health issues", the rest of the folks suffering will get some support as well...

cuban smokes said:

during the campaign Trump endorsed violence by firearms: "I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue & not lose any votes"

Americans laughed.

Oh stop my ass ...............

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If you are that gullible, can't be help. Shame you don't recognize sarcasm. And what does that have to do with mental illness in this country, which is what the thread is about. Derailing a thread is against the rules isn't it?

haymarket said:

Does American gun culture and the glorification of guns and violence bear some of the blame also?

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I blame video games.

CanadaJohn said:

Personally, I believe it's inarguable that a person has to be mentally ill to take the life of another living being in malice, without need or want. It would never cross my mind to even consider such an act.

The problem, in my view, is that too many among us have zero respect for the sanctity of life, all forms of life, and the callousness of some of today's youth to life is appalling.

The how one commits murder, mass or otherwise, is irrelevant if you don't deal with the why in some way. I don't know how, but so long as so many so little value life you will continue to have these types of occurrences.

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That's the problem though, there's a general view that anyone who does anything that you don't like or you don't understand, they've got to be crazy. It's a big argument from personal incredulity. Ultimately, it means nothing.

CaptainCourtesy said:

A truck and a gun are not the same thing. That particular comparison is really poor.

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Or a bomb. Just ask Timothy McVeigh. Getting rid of guns won't stop violence, it will just shift it.

Americans are no more going to change, act like adults, take moral responsibility than blacks in Chicago are going to change and stop shooting each other.







No worries for me. I was taught in the US Marine Corps to improvise, adapt, and overcome.

I'll adapt to the wicked America and survive and overcome. Period.

You all are hell bent on raising wicked Americans, indoctrinating Americans with the belief no matter what they do or how many they mass murder, so long as they die they won't suffer as bad as here on earth (either they go to heaven or to don't exist and therefor no pain and suffering). No problem. I'll improvise and use the American Constitutional right to have a firearm--if I so choose. My enemies are here in this country, not in Russia.

You Americans are almost as bad as those Muslim teachers that indoctrinate Muslims with the idea they not only won't suffer after death, after they mass murder others in jihad, but they will actually go to heaven and live in pleasure and bliss. Liberal Christians are almost as bad as these Muslim teachers. It's like you all are cousins. Spiritual cousins.

And so what does the liberal and Democrat propose? Let's get DC to chip away at freedom for American individuals by forcing them to undergo annual mental health examinations, filling out paper work. Rather than getting the Federal Government out of the way, and having the Federal Government encourage the Churches, Mosques, Buddhist temples etc. to actually step up and do their jobs. Their jobs are in part to forewarn of hell--as Jesus did more than any other prophet of the Bible. At least for the Churches. The Buddhist might warn of karma and the result of coming back as a sewer rat in rebirth or a bullied, skinny, poor kid in the next life.

Anyways... go back to crying about Trump and the Russians. About the only thing Americans are good at these days (oh, and mass shootings, and produce serial killers all over the country...)

CanadaJohn said:

Personally, I believe it's inarguable that a person has to be mentally ill to take the life of another living being in malice, without need or want. It would never cross my mind to even consider such an act.

The problem, in my view, is that too many among us have zero respect for the sanctity of life, all forms of life, and the callousness of some of today's youth to life is appalling.

The how one commits murder, mass or otherwise, is irrelevant if you don't deal with the why in some way. I don't know how, but so long as so many so little value life you will continue to have these types of occurrences.

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In some respects I completely agree with this. Our problem in America is do we have mentally ill people in the country?? Hell yes - starting at the very top. The NRA owns many in politics and have put the shock collars on them all to prove it. Laws prohibiting the sale of guns has been rolled back so people that shouldn't be getting guns are allowed to.
This guy in the Texas shooting had been discharged from service and should never have been allowed to get guns and he slipped through the cracks - even tho from my understanding they did do a background check on him.

I’ve said it before that in all likelihood there is probably some correlation between this rash of shootings and mood altering prescription drugs.

jghiretire said:

In some respects I completely agree with this. Our problem in America is do we have mentally ill people in the country?? Hell yes - starting at the very top. The NRA owns many in politics and have put the shock collars on the all to prove it.

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The NRA's strength isn't that they own politicians, its that their members are organized to respond to 2nd Amendment threats immediately. Just prattle a little about gun control and you open the floodgates to calls and e-mails that start with, "I'm a member of the NRA, and I vote."

jghiretire said:

Laws prohibiting the sale of guns has been rolled back so people that shouldn't be getting guns are allowed to.

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Source for this claim?

haymarket said:

President Trump in Japan has proclaimed that the killing yesterday in Texas is a mental health problem - not a gun problem. And this echoes what we have heard in incident after incident involving mass killings with guns for many years now.

A simple question: is that just the excuse of the moment to pretend we do not have to do anything about guns or is it a serious statement that is true and valid?

And if it is true and laid, how come nothing is done about this so called mental health problem while these incidents continue to happen?

In other words - what is our society going to do about this mental health problem and why have we done nothing other than say this is the problem?

Don't problems deserve some sort of plan of action to fix the problem? So why don't we have one?

And what is it that is so special about the USA that we have all these mental health problems causing us to have 31% of the mass shootings in the world while we have just 5% of the worlds population? Is this a nation which makes people go crazy out of all proportion to our actual numbers?

Click to expand...

I grew up in the 1950's when there were no gun control laws on the books. Everyone around where I lived owned guns. I suppose the only gun control law I remember is one had to have a federal permit to own a machine gun. Different era than today, different society also. But for that entire decade of the 1950's there was just one mass shooting. Of course TV was different, Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver, the Andy Griffith Show. Shows people laugh at today. Back then fathers worked, mothers stayed home and tended the kids. Another thing laughed at today. I always look at the numbers, the stats and wonder why in an era with no gun control, why there was hardly no mass shootings as is happening today? Did our society change that much?

Mental illness, back then the mentally ill were placed in hospitals. then in the 60's and 70's the institutionalize of the mentally ill began and out on the streets they went.

Are the two related? I don't know, seems possible though.

holbritter said:

If you are that gullible, can't be help. Shame you don't recognize sarcasm. And what does that have to do with mental illness in this country, which is what the thread is about. Derailing a thread is against the rules isn't it?

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I think the first few words of the thread are concerning Trump

it may be sarcasm but a candidate running for POTUS has the potential to be taken seriously by some loonies ..........

if you think someone is derailing a thread you could contact 'The Mod Squad' .........

Perotista said:

I grew up in the 1950's when there were no gun control laws on the books.

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I was born in the early 1970s. Here is a little history of "mental health" in the USA. And the Brits "across the pond" should hear this too.

I'm mulatto. And it has bearing on this whole issue and "mental health" in the USA. For decades we biracial mulattoes were accused time after time after time, by blacks of the USA of being the sell outs who would go along with any white supremacist narrative. Especially if it treated blacks and whites asymmetrically. So, had this issue been raised in the 1980s be sure American mulattoes would have been accused of embracing the white mass shooters have "mental health" problems, and blacks would have been whining about that because they would have been treated in media and courts for their homicidal crimes with pure moral overtones. And they are right they would have been and in fact they are to this very moment treated as such.

But no one gave a flying damn about the "mental health" of the mulatto when they were subject to being accused of never challenging the white supremacist story lines. And I know it irked many other mulattoes in America because I have heard them say so. That they don't express this to whites and blacks is neither here nor there.

I'm mulatto and I'm the only one on this website I know of that challenges this narrative. All the blacks seem to go along with it. But that is fine. I'm on record stating such, so, all that kissing up the whites stuff blacks can look in the mirror and ponder whether they are projecting onto the biracial mulatto.




All that said... for arguments sake lets go with the Arab Assad is evil, Obama is evil, Asian North Korean Kim is evil, even the white Putin is evil but anytime a white American mass murders people he is not evil but in so sad tragedy has mental health issues. Let us go with this narrative.

Is or is not the USA run by a two-party system? Democrats and Republicans. The boast being by proponents of this form of representative democracy is that multi-party systems (like Brazil) are too inefficient and don't allow for desired goals to be reached quickly. Supposedly, in a two-party system you can get things done far more quickly, due they say to "party loyalty" and not a 3rd leg in the way, let alone a 4th or 5th.

If mental health care--by Government involvement--is the solution. Then why doesn't Democrats or Republicans just do it?

Milwaukee the city I live in is run by Democrats. How the hell are the cops, fire fighters, public schools all funded? They are by local (not Federal) tax dollars. City Hall is the local White House, the local DC. Property taxes fund most things run by the city.

So, I'm saying that Democrats in fact do not need Republicans or Trump to finance mental health care for everyone in the Democrat run cities.

Furthermore, this begs the question who is right: socialists or Catholics in how ought reign in decisions across the country? The Socialist say it ought come from a Putin-like figure in a far away corner of the country called DC in which change radiates from the outer circles inward. The Catholics say that it ought comes from small, local circles that radiate outward, like City Hall in Milwaukee outward toward the whole city of Milwaukee, because presumably, Milwaukeeans will know better what is good for Milwaukee than far away figures in DC will.

The irony of Democrats attacking Putin I should not have to mention, as they blame Trump for not essentially being what they claim Putin is. This way Democrats never have to do jack in their own cities. Or Republicans. It's just an inefficient game of point the finger. For the next 30 and 50 years both of them will be yapping on about "mental health" when mass shootings in the US occur. Neither are worth a damn. Frank truth. For the last 30 or 40 years all I have heard from either is the same song about black crime: the fathers need to be in the home.



In the image below a City Hall for any city in the USA would be the dot in the center. To try and put some visualization to my comments about circles.

HenryChinaski said:

I’ve said it before that in all likelihood there is probably some correlation between this rash of shootings and mood altering prescription drugs.

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Which, at least for the illegal ones, a lot of people on the left want to completely legalize. Go figure.

Cephus said:

Which, at least for the illegal ones, a lot of people on the left want to completely legalize. Go figure.

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Weed has never nor will ever be responsible for someone going out on a killing spree. Over prescribed Adderall, Ritalin and Zoloft, more than likely yes.

HenryChinaski said:

I’ve said it before that in all likelihood there is probably some correlation between this rash of shootings and mood altering prescription drugs.

Click to expand...

Cephus said:

Which, at least for the illegal ones, a lot of people on the left want to completely legalize. Go figure.

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Chianski is wrong, I'd suspect. Mass shootings are much more recent than the widely prescribed "subscription drugs" there mentioned. After all, adderall is a blend of ampehtamines, a number of which were even perfectly legal back in the early 60s. Do people who commit crimes sometimes have amphetamines in them? Yes. But where's the evidence for a causal link between a prescription and violence, let alone specifically mass-shooting violence.

Zoloft? What are the stats on violent crime or gun crime amongst persons taking Zoloft vs the general non-Zoloft population? What about combinations of drugs? What if it's not that at all?

illegal ones? No, not really. I certainly haven't heard anything about autopsies of dead mass shooters finding huge amounts of drugs, legal or illegal, in their system. Has anyone read that but not posted about it?




The mass shooters tend to be just plain broken people, and there also seems to be a copycat phenomenon: mass shooting is seen as something to do on the way out by the craziest, when it wasn't before.

Mental illness is apparent in some, but it's not necessarily the same illness. There is no one factor that correlates to the rise of shootings.




It's not the guns. It's not the perscription drugs. It's not the illegal drugs. All those existed before the rise of mass shootings.

It is something else, and likely, a combination of things that may be near impossible to trace.


To blame it on illegal drugs, and then use that blame to accuse liberals is just plain slimey.

Well not just plain slimey. Stupid too. But slimey mostly.





Go figure.

Mr Person said:

Chianski is wrong, I'd suspect. Mass shootings are much more recent than the widely prescribed "subscription drugs". After all, adderall is a blend of ampehtamines, a number of which were even perfectly legal back in the early 60s. Zoloft? What are the stats on violent crime or gun crime amongst persons taking Zoloft vs the general non-Zoloft population? What about combinations of drugs? What if it's not that at all?

But illegal ones? No, not really. I certainly haven't heard anything about autopsies of dead mass shooters finding huge amounts of drugs, legal or illegal, in their system. Has anyone read that but not posted about it?




The mass shooters tend to be just plain broken people, and there also seems to be a copycat phenomenon: mass shooting is seen as something to do on the way out by the craziest, when it wasn't before.

Mental illness is apparent in some, but it's not necessarily the same illness. There is no one factor that correlates to the rise of shootings.




It's not the guns. It's not the perscription drugs. It's not the illegal drugs. All those existed before the rise of mass shootings.

It is something else, and likely, a combination of things that may be near impossible to trace.


To blame it on illegal drugs, and then use that blame to accuse liberals is just plain slimey.

Well not just plain slimey. Stupid too. But slimey mostly.

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The drugs I mentioned among others make people do things they wouldn’t normally do if they were not under the influence of them. This is something that should be looked at closely, there are no in-depth studies that I am aware of and it’s a safe bet that big Pharma doesn’t want in-depth studies. How many of these mass murderes were taking prescription medication. Aren’t you even curious?

haymarket said:

President Trump in Japan has proclaimed that the killing yesterday in Texas is a mental health problem - not a gun problem. And this echoes what we have heard in incident after incident involving mass killings with guns for many years now.

A simple question: is that just the excuse of the moment to pretend we do not have to do anything about guns or is it a serious statement that is true and valid?

And if it is true and laid, how come nothing is done about this so called mental health problem while these incidents continue to happen?

In other words - what is our society going to do about this mental health problem and why have we done nothing other than say this is the problem?

Don't problems deserve some sort of plan of action to fix the problem? So why don't we have one?

And what is it that is so special about the USA that we have all these mental health problems causing us to have 31% of the mass shootings in the world while we have just 5% of the worlds population? Is this a nation which makes people go crazy out of all proportion to our actual numbers?

Click to expand...

So there is crime using guns and that's pretty well documented and most people dont consider that a result of mental illness. Nor the psychiatric community.

Then there are a large number of suicides. Mostly males use guns, but not all. They are often diagnosed with mental illness, and yet...so many still succeed. Should we start here, trying to figure out who is most likely to actually kill themselves? It would save alot of our veterans.

And then we have the mass shootings/active shooter events which (I believe) prompted this thread.

What mental illness exactly do you think causes these? We certainly have a target demographic, since it is almost exclusively the purview of the white male. (only occasionally another race or ethnicity) Do people really think that most of the shootings with adult males are due to mental illness?

But mental 'issues?' Yes. Issues that develop for a variety of reasons.

I think what we do see unfortunately, is white males with some real mental issues, issues that focus around their failures with jobs and women and life in general...and then blaming everyone else for their failures. And then they focus on getting even, "I'll show them!", etc. And who is cool? Who's not a loser? Who can administer punishment against their enemies? Soldiers. With lots of tacticool gear. So IMO they gravitate towards guns unfortunately.

Then they go back and shoot up where they were fired from, or kill their ex-s and their families, shoot up schools, are racists who blame others for them being losers, they can be homophobes, etc.


The only thing that does seem to link back to actual mental illness are some of the (mostly) teen shootings, where they have been diagnosed and are on anti-depressants. There's a serious link there to violence. (And probably alot of them are just medicated for ADD or just to try and get some control of them)

HenryChinaski said:

The drugs I mentioned among others make people do things they wouldn’t normally do if they were not under the influence of them. This is something that should be looked at closely, there are no in-depth studies that I am aware of and it’s a safe bet that big Pharma doesn’t want in-depth studies. How many of these mass murderes were taking prescription medication.

Aren’t you even curious?

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I don't know where the last sentence comes from.

I do know something of the rather unpredictable effects of anti-depressant drugs (ie, aimed at depression, not at reversing the effects of a depressant drug). It's somewhat scary. Psychiatrists often work half in trial-by-error in finding the right medication and dose for a patient. It's not because they're incompetent but because we only know a fraction about mind-body interactions and that fraction does not even include the denominator. So the wrong dose or wrong drug and you might take a bipolar person and turn them suicidal. And there are plenty of other side-effects.

All true. There's more. Enough for multiple papers.

But, we also don't have any evidence that I'm aware of regarding a correlation between mass shooters and the drugs you mentioned (or any). That's my point.

(Edit: the same goes for Cephus spouting off about "illegal drugs". Even if one produced evidence about how many criminals were on drugs, that doesn't necessarily itself prove that the drugs caused the crime. It could just be that they're criminals and if they're willing to break into a house, they don't give two ****s about snorting some coke before they do it. Or maybe they're addicts and they do it to get the next fix. You really do not know just from numbers)



You cannot allege causation based on the fact that perscription for anti-ADD, anti-ADHD, and anti-depressant drugs have soared over the last twenty years. Other things have soared too. That includes the number of mass shootings, meaning that at the very least you'd have to rule out the copycat effect.

But I'm also saying that before you get to trying to rule out the copycat effect, we have to establish that mass shooters commonly take the same prescription drugs. If they don't, there's no reason to look into it. And if such evidence exists, I am ignorant of it.

Are you aware of such evidence?

Let's see, how seriously should we take these remarks?

Trump Budget Proposes Big Health Cuts

Substance Abuse and Mental Health budgeted funding would be cut by almost $400 million.

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What The Senate Health Care Bill Could Mean For People With Mental Illness (Spoiler alert: It’s not good.)

The draft of the Senate health care reform bill, called the Better Care Reconciliation Act, released Thursday prompted new anxiety over what the eventual bill could mean for those living with mental illness.

The short answer: Less coverage for more money.

The bill is largely similar to the one passed by House Republicans in May.

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Here Is What's In The House-Approved Health Care Bill

Eliminate required coverage, called essential health benefits, including maternity care, mental health and prescription drugs, that were required under the Affordable Care Act

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Sounds like bull**** talking points to me. But it sure is convenient to pretend to care about mental health this week.