Is it over? Unfortunately, maybe not.

[Sancho]

For some of us are old enough to remember, the rhetoric gets the crazies stirred up and they don't stop. I think the media and attention feed idiots to more violence. In the 60's, it seemed like someone was killed every time we turned on the TV, and almost all of them were mentally ill. None were ever proven to be acting for a RW organization. I hate to say it, but there are probably more nut jobs planning to shoot someone out there now - and egged on by Palin and Limbaugh and Beck.

Personally, I'd support the strongest gun laws possible and make it a crime to even hint at attacking anyone. Of course I'll be flamed by gun-owners and free speechers. Many years ago I thought the same thing, but now I've gotten older and wiser.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0194022.html

Kennedy, John F. (president of U.S.): Shot Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas, Tex., allegedly by Lee Harvey Oswald; died same day. Injured was Gov. John B. Connally of Texas. Oswald was shot and killed two days later by Jack Ruby.
Malcolm X, also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (black activist): Shot and killed in a New York City auditorium, Feb. 21, 1965; his killer(s) were never positively identified.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. (civil rights leader): Shot April 4, 1968, in Memphis by James Earl Ray; died same day.
Kennedy, Robert F. (U.S. senator from New York): Shot June 5, 1968, in Los Angeles by Sirhan Bishara Sirhan; died June 6.

[HereSince1628]

1. About all those mentally-ill you think are planning mayhem

Here is a list of a few mental illnesses. Please look down it and identify the disorders that really make you afraid and for which you think are very likely to be 'nutjobs' 'out there' planning to shoot people?

Then go on your favorite search engine and look up the association that disorder and violence against the public (don't include self-directed harm such as anorexia, para-suicidal acts like cutting, head-banging or hair-pulling etc).

When you get that done, come back to DU and post some fear mongering about that mental disorder that actually has been found to have a positive relationship with violence against the public and give us some straight scoop with links to evidence that we should share your fear of that mental illness.

Maybe then we could petition Homeland Security to monitor and 'eliminate the risk' of those disorders before they act.

* Acute stress disorder
* Adjustment disorder
* Adolescent antisocial behavior
* Adult antisocial behavior
* Adverse effects of medication-not otherwise specified
* Age-related cognitive decline
* Agoraphobia
* Agoraphobia without history of panic disorder
* Alcohol-related disorder
* Alzheimers
* Amnestic disorder
* Amphetamine (or amphetamine-like)-related disorder
* Anorexia nervosa
* Antisocial personality disorder
* Anxiety disorder
* Anxiolytic-related disorder
* Asperger syndrome
* Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
* Atypical autism
* Autistic disorder
* Autophagia
* Avoidant personality disorder
* Bereavement
* Bibliomania
* Binge eating disorder
* Bipolar disorder
* Body dysmorphic disorder
* Borderline intellectual functioning
* Borderline personality disorder
* Breathing-related sleep disorder
* Brief psychotic disorder
* Bulimia nervosa
* Caffeine-related disorder
* Cannabis-related disorder
* Catatonic disorder
* Catatonic Schizophrenia
* Childhood antisocial behavior
* Childhood Disintegrative Disorder
* Chronic motor or vocal tic disorder
* Circadian rhythm sleep disorder
* Clinical Depression
* Cocaine-related disorder
* Cognitive disorder
* Communication disorder
* Conduct disorder
* Conversion disorder
* Eating disorder not otherwise specified
* Echolalia
* Echopraxia
* Emotional disorder
* Encopresis
* Enuresis (not due to a general medical condition)
* Exhibitionism
* Expressive language disorder
* Factitious disorder
* Fregoli delusion
* Ganser syndrome
* Gender identity disorder
* Generalized anxiety disorder
* General adaptation syndrome
* Hallucinogen-related disorder
* Histrionic personality disorder
* Huntington's disease
* Hypomanic episode
* Impulse control disorder
* Impulse-control disorder not elsewhere classified
* Inhalant-related disorder
* Insomnia due to a general medical condition
* Intermittent explosive disorder
* Joubert syndrome
* Kleptomania
* Kendall Nicole Baughn
* Learning disorders
* Major depressive disorder
* Major depressive episode
* Male erectile disorder
* Malingering
* Manic episode
* Mathematics disorder
* Medication-related disorder
* Megalomania
* Melancholia
* Mental disorder-not otherwise specified due to a general medical condition
* Mental Retardation
* Mixed episode
* Mixed receptive-expressive language disorder
* Mood disorder
* Mood episode
* Motor skills disorder
* Munchausen's syndrome
* Munchausen's syndrome by proxy
* Multi-Personality Disorder
* Narcissistic personality disorder
* Narcolepsy
* Neglect of child
* Neuroleptic-related disorder
* Nicotine-related disorder
* Nightmare disorder
* Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
* Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD)
* Occupational problem
* Oneirophrenia
* Opioid-related disorder
* Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD)
* Pain disorder
* Panic attack
* Panic disorder with agoraphobia
* Panic disorder without agoraphobia
* Paranoid personality disorder
* Parasomnia
* Parent-child relational problem
* Partner relational problem
* Pathological gambling
* Perfectionism
* Personality change due to a general medical condition
* Personality disorder
* Pervasive developmental disorder (PDD)
* Phase of life problem
* Phencyclidine (or phencyclidine-like)-related disorder
* Phonological disorder
* Physical abuse
* Pica
* Polysubstance-related disorder
* Post-traumatic embitterment disorder (PTED)
* Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
* Premature ejaculation
* Primary hypersomnia
* Primary insomnia
* Psychological factor affecting medical condition
* Psychotic disorder
* Pyromania
* Reactive Attachment Disorder of infancy or early childhood
* Reading disorder
* Relational disorder
* Relational problem
* Religious or spiritual problem
* Residual schizophrenia
* Rett's disorder
* Rumination syndrome
* Schizoaffective disorder
* Schizoid personality disorder
* Schizophrenia
* Schizophreniform disorder
* Schizotypal personality disorder
* Sedative-, hypnotic-, or anxiolytic-related disorder
* Selective mutism
* Separation anxiety disorder
* Severe mental retardation
* Shared psychotic disorder
* Sibling relational problem
* Sleep disorder
* Sleep terror disorder
* Sleepwalking disorder
* Social phobia (Social anxiety disorder)
* Somatization disorder
* Somatoform disorder
* Specific phobia
* Stereotypic movement disorder
* Stuttering
* Substance-related disorder
* Tardive dyskinesia
* Tic disorder
* Tourette's disorder
* Transient tic disorder
* Trichotillomania

[Jamastiene]

3. Thank you.

That was so eloquently written and made the point much better than I could when I tried. :applause:

[cali]

5. thank you!

[lunatica]

7. According to your list that includes 100% of humanity

LOL! We're all crazy!

[tavalon]

9. Yes, and your username is high irony!

[lunatica]

12. It's meant to be

LOL! I'm sure you can find your 'mantal illness' in that list too. Everyone on the planet can!

[tavalon]

8. Mental illness does not a murderer make

but more often than not, such sensationalist murders are carried out by people who have schizophrenia. But again, not all schizophrenics are killers. Not even a small percentage.

What would concern me more about this young man is his decision to focus on lucid dreaming. I personally love my occasional lucid dream but as someone with PTSD, I don't think it would be a very good self care model for me to pursue having lucid dreams.

[Odin2005]

11. +1,000,000,000,000,000,000

[Sancho]

15. You make my point!

I've personally been in court and watched a psychiatrist and psychologist tell the judge that a person was dangerous, even though they had committed not crime yet. The judge did nothing. No treatment was mandated. A few months later that person shot and killed someone! You can argue with mental health people and lawyers all you want, but some "nuts" are not diagnosed with an illness, but are still dangerous. Others are obviously mentally ill. Would Oswald have been diagnosed? Maybe not.

I have no doubt that the latest shooter may have had a diagnosis from the descriptions we've heard. I also suspect there was no treatment for him even though we don't know the facts yet. I don't know if a mental health professional in AZ can hold a person or not.

(I'm familiar with the DSM, too). When people exhibit mental illnesses that interfere with safety - which appears to be the case when someone is tossed from college, rejected by the military, and called "scary" by family and friends - then why is there no treatment and why can they buy weapons only useful for killing people.

If you are familiar with some of the illnesses listed above, you know they don't occur in a vacuum. Paranoid people pick up on the emotions and local happenings and phobias are a fear of something. Because of the point you raise, we may miss some dangerous people with various mental health screenings and treatments since diagnosis is sometimes difficult.

That leaves us with two concepts: 1.) tone down the dangerous inflammatory stuff that provides the crazies a dangerous target - make it unacceptable for "Palin style speech" - and avoid creating waves of violence among those who are extremists 2.) have much stronger laws to control guns - including mental health screening

I'm in favor of both!

[HereSince1628]

16. I tried to NARROW your overly broad perspective of nut-jobiness

I know that violent acts have been, are (probably, even as I write) and will be done by persons who are mentally ill and mentally well.

I am unaware of a credible scientific/scholarly source that provides evidence that the mentally ill are more susceptible to being motivated to act by hate speech than anyone else. As far as I can tell the notion that the mentally are of a weak mind that is pliable to the will of evil people is a myth.

If you have a link to such a study I'd be grateful to have that. Really, I'm interested in this issue. As you may have surmised, it is my pet issue, and I want to know the expert consensus about it.

The social aspects of whipping up righteous frenzy over political causes has been studied (particularly for right wing movements like Nazism). Results suggest many historic episodes in western civilization and our nation's history where apparently mentally well people joined movements and adopted violent behavior in the support of causes proposed by leaders.

[sendero]

2. Yeah..

.. there is a legal solution to every problem. We should, while we are at it, outlaw sadness, economic recessions and rabies.

The real answer is for more progressives to own guns so when they go off their nut they kill a wingnut, something new.

[leveymg]

4. Look at American history. This is probably the most violent society, per capita, in the world.

We're a nation founded in genocide, built on slavery, that invented industrialized warfare, still divided regionally by the Civil War, racism, and class exploitation, that became affluent after two World Wars which destroyed the rest of the planet's manufacturing base, that invented the atomic bomb and actually dropped it on two cities, that built an arsenal of more than 50,000 nuclear weapons during the Cold War, during which we invaded, intervened, assassinated, or overthrown governments in more than 100 countries, killed three of its own Presidents, yet allows its citizens to own more guns than any other place in the world, has a higher violent crime rate than other developed countries and more people in prisons . . .

and what is really shocking is that anyone should claim to be the least bit surprised that 19 more people got shot the other day.

[cali]

6. evidence that we're the most violent society per capita?

I don't think that's close to being true.

[leveymg]

13. Add up the number of people who have died here and around the world by American arms since 1500

and I don't think anyone approaches the total, except perhaps the Russians. I believe they're a distant second, with the British Empire, the Germans, Japanese, and Spain following in that order.

There is some overlap between the American colonists and the British, of course.

[cali]

14. that's not evidence.

And I believe the russians killed far more than the U.S. And the Germans bear by far the lion's share of the blame for most of the deaths in WWII.

[leveymg]

17. Historical reference is evidence. You can find your own sources about numbers killed by various

groups in America and around the world.

The Russians did kill more Germans during World Wars One and Two than did the Americans, and Stalin killed tens of millions of his alleged political enemies during the 1930s.

But, against that, there were the 50 million or so Native Americans who had a mortality rate of 95 percent during the 350 years following first-contact. Then, there are the five to 10 million African slaves who perished during capture and during the Middle Passage and later in bondage.

The American Civil War dead were about half a million.

Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, died during the various American occupations and interventions in the Philippines, Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Millions more died at the hands of American proxies during the Cold War. Then there are the millions of casualties during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Finally, we come to the Post-Cold War wars in the Middle East and Persian Gulf/South Asia - millions more.

Count 'em up. We are, indeed, an extraordinarily lethal people who have exported wars and violence like none other in modern history.

[EstimatedProphet]

10. It's not even close to being over

This is definitely going to happen again, and on a worse scale.

On edit: I don't think banning guns is the answer. I think actually addressing our issues is the answer. One of our issues is how we treat the mentally ill.