Miscellaneous political stuff - Part 11

A quote from a worthwhile read in the replies summarizes my belief:

"From my perspective, it seems the best thing would be to incarcerate him as quickly as possible to minimize the damage he can do, allowing his narcissistic followers to retreat into the fantasy that he is merely a martyr."

Link to the entire column follows. Note that the author had figured this out last year. 

www.milwaukeeindependent.com/thom-hartmann/fragile-ego-trumps-mythos-collapses-may-drag-fervent-followers-narcissistic-downfall/

At least three elementary school children shot and killed in a Nashville school, one injured.. suspect deceased..

Grades pre-K through 6th grade .

Convenient Christian school.

Female shooter, appears to be a teen. Including shooter, 7 killed.
Updated 3 adults, 3 kids killed and shoot killed by police.

Screw you Sen Blackburn, your prayers aren't working. Why not give God a hand with gun safety regulations.

It’s the person doing the shooting. The guns do not shoot themselves. Let’s be clear. And this transgender,  mentally ill, still living at home in a rich community, probably no real job is the one who did the shooting. She had the gun in her hands and pulled the trigger. SHE is the one who killed these people. Not the gun. SHE killed these people. NOT THE GUN.

Guns are part of the problem.  Just look at the number of gun violence deaths in the US compared to other developed countries.  They have violent video games, mental illness etc.  What they don't have?  A proliferation of guns.

www.kff.org/global-health-policy/issue-brief/child-and-teen-firearm-mortality-in-the-u-s-and-peer-countries/

Firearms are the leading cause of death in the US for children ages 1-19.  In other developed counties, firearms are much lower on the list.  Canada is the next closest country.  In Canada, firearms are the 5th leading cause of death, after car accidents, other accidents, congenital disease and cancer.

And your speculation about the shooter is exactly that.  Pure speculation.  Reputable news outlets are only reporting her name, age and she may have attended the school.

And how do you know she was mentally ill?  As far as I can tell, no reputable news sources are reporting that.

Yes, we need to improve access to mental health care.  Focusing on mental health alone will not solve the problem of gun violence.  We are capable of walking and chewing gun at the same time.  We can improve access to mental health care and reduce access to guns.  It's not an either/or situation and they are not mutually exclusive.  

The solutions to gun violence are not hardening targets, school resource officers, secure doors, safe rooms etc.  The solutions to gun violence revolve around reducing access to guns through federal laws - age limits, universal background checks, banning high capacity magazines, reasonable limits on magazines, red flag laws, gun safety classes etc.  In Mississippi, to register to vote or adopt a pet, there are 6 documents or steps required.  Buying a gun from a store - just one step.  Or through a private purchase?  Nothing at all.  Why should it be easier to buy a gun vs adopt a cat?

Why would you think that someone that was not mentally ill would plot out entrances to the school, gather a cache of guns and ammunition and go to a school with young children and kill them??? What the hell kind of question is that?? You think normal people shoot up schools?? It doesn’t take a genius to work that one out.

Not surprised, but this is a really uninformed statement.  Only a small percentage of mass shooters struggle with mental illness.


www.columbiapsychiatry.org/news/mass-shootings-and-mental-illness

The reality is that people with mental illness account for a very small proportion of perpetrators of mass shootings in the U.S., says Ragy Girgis, MD, associate professor of clinical psychiatry in the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry and the New York State Psychiatric Institute.


www.nytimes.com/2022/08/22/us/mass-shootings-mental-illness.html

While some mass shootings are committed by people with diagnosed mental illnesses, a life crisis is a better predictor of violence, researchers say. Blaming mass murder on mental illness is a time-honored impulse, used by law enforcement and politicians alike.  Yet America’s mass killers fit no single profile and certainly no pattern of insanity — many, if not most, had never been diagnosed with a serious psychiatric disorder.


www.factcheck.org/2022/05/ask-scicheck-files-the-relationship-between-mental-health-and-mass-shootings/

As we explained in our article, people with mental health disorders are more likely than those without such conditions to commit acts of mass violence, but many mass shooters do not have mental illnesses. It has not been shown that mental illness is the primary cause of mass murder.


abcnews.go.com/Health/blaming-mass-shootings-nations-mental-health-crisis-harmful/story?id=84973562

However, physicians, psychiatrists and other leading experts told ABC News that it is inaccurate to assert that "mental health issues" are solely or primarily responsible for the United States’ ongoing rash of gun violence.

Instead, while experts say some aspects of mental illness are associated with mass violence, they insist that it is truly a multi-layer and complex crisis, driven by a confluence of other factors as well, such as widespread access to firearms, stalled gun reform and exposure to increased stressors and crises.