Posted on 07/20/2012 3:43:35 PM PDT by Prospero
Some states it is “guilty but insane”. Of course the punchline to the whole thing is that whether the insane verdict include the word guilty or innocent doesn’t change what happens to the person, they still go in the nuthouse usually for longer than a “standard” 20 to life verdict will put you in jail. Read an article in the 80s from a criminal defender about how defense attorneys were doing their clients a disservice by using the insanity plea because it usually resulted in longer incarceration, but because it included the word “innocent” the attorneys consider it a win.
Schizophrenia is NOT split personality. I know, my son was diagnosed with this very serious brain disorder in 2006. And 99.999% of people with Schizoprehnia are not psychopathic killers - but they are the ones’ who get all the attention.
No evidence that I can see. The shooter's black protective clothing puts people in mind of OWS "black bloc" protests, and somebody says they saw him at an Occupy Denver rally, but so far that's all in the category of speculation and rumor.
We don’t even know this guy and you proclaim him Schizo? Nothing like prescribing before analyzing, eh, doc?
I'm not a big fan of mind-control scenarios but I'm also not ruling such a possibility.
Ceaseless hustling and hysteria are definite tactics of the Junta, and the whole incident seems way too convenient in serving that agenda, controlling the news cycle.
All that's within my own practical realm of real power, however, is controlling my own reaction to these events, to see their exploitation of the tragedy and pointing that out, regardless of what the motivation of the actual shooter.
I will admit that the level of organization, also does not fit the pattern of most schizophrenics. Though his being apparently lucid and normal before "going on vacation" from his meds does fit that pattern in many cases, especially among the very intelligent schizophrenics, and especially at early onset among many young adult males. I do know this fit the pattern of at least two such "patients" in my own experience.
One of these could have built a flying saucer, before becoming completely symptomatic, and sold tickets.
If not the Junta, certainly the devil, offered aid and assistance. The latter's agenda was equally well-served by this Joker's actions.
Time to re-read Paul's letter to the Ephesians.
My son was diagnosed with this terrible brain disorder in 2006. I wish he had cancer - then he would get understanding and compassion, but alas the ignorance in the world about mental illness is such that the stigma of these illnesses is almost unbearable. (I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir).
I am the director for my state for a program called "Family to Family", conducted by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Family to Family is a 12-week intensive education course, taught by trained family members, to educate families with ill loved ones. The program was a life saver for our family, which is why I eventually became a teacher and now the state director. Go here:
If you have not already taken F2F, I would stringly urge you to see if there is a NAMI affiliate in your area that offers the course.
Thanks, I'll look at it. It started when she was 14. She's 29 now and living who-knows-where. It did lead me into teaching special education. There was no help nearby that I could get to without a babysitter - and, trust me, no one wanted to watch her and I was exhausted.
Didn't make any proclamation, one way or another, except with regard to the criminal exploitation of this tragedy by the regime and its allies, and to compare the reaction of our national news readers to these murders with their non-reaction to the weekend murder rates in Chicago, for example.
Citation please. I really want to see this new research you speak of.
I have reviewed every single research paper on Cannabis that was issued up until few months ago. To date, there was no conclusive evidence that it causes any damage to any part of the body. There was no conclusive evidence that it causes any permanent changes at all. This is true even when it is abused beyond all reason. There is no possible toxic or dangerous dose for cannabis.
Alcohol, on the other hand, is 100% proven and guaranteed to cause permanent damage to every organ of the body when abused. We usually don't see the full extent of damage because a failed liver or alcohol poisoning claims most alcoholics before everything else has a chance to rot.
Thank you for this post.
We closed most of the mental health hospitals back in the late 70s, early 80s, thanks to the bleeding hearts who decided they were cruel.
So those with serious mental health problems now live on the streets, go off their meds, and break their families’ hearts.
And some can be very dangerous to others when unmedicated. I suspect this young man was suffering from schizophrenia, which develops at about his age. His poor mother - she may have known, but been unable to convince medical authorities.
Some schizophrenics are able to hide their illness very well, until the delusions take over completely.
Well done, thanks.
Thanks for taking the time to post.
you are correct.
It is not easy when this topic comes up to hear the obscene rantings of those who do not understand mental illness.
I wonder if they have any idea of how many people are sitting with them in church or at work that are functioning well in society because of medications for depression, anxiety, etc. Those very family members, neighbors and co workers, or their fellow church members just 60 years ago might be in a hideous state asylum or ‘attic” forever.
You have way more patience for their ignorance and nasty comments than I do.
As for not being able to ‘force’ people to take medications or be hospitalized for longer times....well, we pay a high price for our freedoms, but I wouldn’t trade our system for any other.
As to those who say “This is just evil, not mental illness!”...well, we will see as more information is given. there is a difference.
As for all those who decry the American right to bear arms...well, we have the recent case in Europe where the guy with political evil intent shot young people at a camp.
and that country had the strictest gun laws.
I bet he’s another case of schizophrenia induced by smoking pot.
God gave us doctors and medicine and helpers.
Let us not go back to mideval times when we thought mentally ill people were “possessed” or “the sins of the father are visited on the children”.
We do not know yet what was the reason for this tragedy. It could very well be one of the rare violent episodes of a paranoid schizophrenics or it could be of a political group that has taken advantage of a disturbed person.
the statistics btw, on mass murders has not changed in decades.
I re-re-read the original post, Prospero.
Choir, meet Preacher.
My take also, is that I hope this won’t be setting up the Hinckley Defense for the perp. The next span of days will show if there is anything more than a lone whacko gunman involved...
So - that they are ‘snarky comments’ applied to a ‘schizophrenic’ will carry more weight once it is determined that he is, truly, schizophrenic and not just a cold-blooded killer. Nothing posted here links, absolutely, this killer with schizophrenia. Maybe the Defense Lawyer is just buttering the public up by putting out the suggestion that he is, or linking the two in time in the press. I’m not buying it until I hear a whole lot more facts.
Nasty things, facts.
You’re more likely to be correct. Some personality disorder. Drugs, I’m hearing too, fueled it. If he had true Schizophrenia it’s damn near impossible to contemplate that he’d be able to pull off such a well-executed operation. Their minds are just too disordered for these intricate operations. Some serious mental defects in play to be sure, but not what’s being tossed around here.
I don’t think there’s any evidence so far that he’s schizophrenic or has any other illness. We’ve just been having a discussion. I think it’s possible that this guy turns out to be a psych like the Tucson and Virginia Tech shooters, but so far it’s just a theory tossed around on an internet message board. Nothing wrong with speculation.
In fact, we need some informed discussion of how we fail to remove the dangerously mentally ill from our midst. They are more dangerous any day than an inert firearm, but it’s touchy to discuss limiting the civil liberties of someone who is scary but who has, as yet, not committed a crime.
Did his defense lawyer suggest schizophrenia? I missed it if he did.
“That as many or more people will die in “random” shootings on the streets of major U.S. cities, Chicago in particular, on an average weekend, this July, still escapes the notice of our entertainment news-readers and other media.”
That can’t be used to further their agenda.
That’s what I was thinking. Hard to tell from the sketchy information, but it could be paranoid schizophrenia. Higher functioning than other schizophrenia flavors. Also, more prone to violence. Paranoid schizophrenics are less likely to be affected by mood problems or problems with thinking, concentration and attention.
Time will tell.
My mother is one of these. Of course, this cry is coming mostly from women, who are inherently more safety and protection-oriented.
But the answer is that we can't and shouldn't do anything about this, other than doing what we should have been doing all along - being aware of our surroundings and suspicious of suspicious people. And acting accordingly.
I witnessed this in 2 men in different units I served in my years as an Army chaplain.
One donned all the paraphernalia of a delta force soldier and began stalking others one night. Full blown adult-onset schizophrenia ended up as the diagnosis. He really thought he was on a mission.
Another was an SFC who heard angels in a tree telling him to take over a baptist church down the road from his house. Same thing.
It is real, and I’ve witnessed it. These guys went off their rockers. One dangerous but contained and the other not dangerous but just as looney. In the absence of any other explanation that comes out, this is an excellent starting point.
It is important to undertsand the reasons for things- not to excuse them, but to help prevent them in the future. I have known a bunch of people with schizophrenia. They become truly frightening when they are off their meds. Won’t go into details, but at least one of them I know became violent when off his meds. Others became extremely paranoid and angry, and luckily got help before becoming violent. One of them I had to confront to get help, and he did. I imagine the worst thing is when it first manifests, usually in young life.
My gut tells me he is the classic example of a nerd, kind of a loner, probably heavily into fantasy and role playing, who got attention and was accepted into a group like OWSers.
He no doubt had some kind of mental disorder. He was a lefty afterall.
“However, if he was, betcha his family knew it and were powerless to intervene.”
Chose NOT to intervene.
Can you have a severe mental illness and still get a degree in neuroscience? I’m going with evil. Of course, he will probably be deemed not guilty by reason of insanity, spend a few years in a mental hospital, and be released. I do feel for his family, though.
Well, there was a time; when these ‘ill’, could find respite in a mental hospital. Jimmy Carter, fixed that, however. (As he ‘fixed’ so many things, for America.)
We need to go to ‘their’ media blogs. . .take them out, at the knees; with the truth. When we ‘know’ it; of course.
My wife and I were talking about this murderer last night. We talked about the why’s of the tragedy. I said what part of your brain do you have to shut off so that you can carry out something like this. When one is planning a project be it a playhouse for your kids, a sewing project, a meal, whatever, you start thinking about what it’s going to take to accomplish your project. Somewhere along the way, you may say to yourself that you don’t want to do it. So you change your mind and go about other matters.
When this guy was planning this tragedy, he didn’t change his mind about it. He carried through with his plan. Who does that? What part of one’s brain do you have to shut off so that you can deny the results of your actions? What makes a person like this do something like this?
If he had problems that he could;t deal with, why not put the gun to your own head and pull the trigger? Why ruin the lives of others because your life is in dumper? So many questions and hopefully there will be some answers to them. Prayers going out to all those affected by this guy’s insanity.
There is indeed mental illness; though it may actually be encouraged/cultivated. Also, one must be very careful in the definition of "mental illness" -- just because one doesn't think like everyone else does not make him mentally ill; indeed not thinking like everyone else could be a sign of mental health. Consider Nazi Germany, imagine the guards at the death-camps, one of whom is disturbed to the point of paralysis until pushed into action by his superior; that single guard could be taken for a mental evaluation and, because he is not like his peers, diagnosed with mental illness... yet what sort of person is it who can gladly/without-qualm assist on running a death-camp?
Schizophrenia does not indicate multiple personalities. The name for that is dissassociative identity disorder.
The family member with the disease suffered for years...a genius, funny, charming. He killed too......Himself.
We have moved away from having news inform us...to endless commentary on the news. We need to educate our youth in discerning the difference. Analytics.
Not to diminish the MO’s per schizophrenia; but it is unfortunate, that the ‘diseased pattern’ (mentioned here per Obama’s own responses) of Marxism/Liberalism is not examined by serious, truthful inquiry.
“Mr. Kromka said that Mr. Holmes’s “disposition was a little off” and that he could be socially awkward, one of the quieter people in the lab. He spent much of his time immersed in his computer, often participating in role-playing online games.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/us/shooting-at-colorado-theater-showing-batman-movie.html?pagewanted=3
He was living more socially in his on-line fantasy world (as the bad guy) than he was in the real world. As things got tougher for him in the real world, he slipped gradually into the fantasy one. Does that hypothesis make sense to you?
That may happen to a lot of people as things get worse economically.
I think you are touching the iceburg's tip. The economy is indeed an important factor, but so is the feeling of having some control, this is why drinking becomes much more prevalent in statistic nations: getting drunk is one of the only things they can control.
Another factor is the demeaning of maleness, this is so prevalent in our society that it's become unconscious. Just look at guys in commercials: incompetent, dumber than any woman or child, and otherwise a buffoon.
Consider how many boys get drugged because they act like... boys. Consider what happens if you bring up something that is constitutionally-illegal that the government is doing, usually under statute, and how easily dismissed your arguments are. (Obama's eligibility, Fast & Furious, lots of state courts, lots of state governments.)
Games are one of the few places where a guy can be unapologetically competitive; where what he does matters ("I just saved the world!").
I agree with both you and Dr. Charles Krauthammer on this.
God help the parents of this young man. They probably had no clue.
“I think you are touching the iceburg’s tip. The economy is indeed an important factor, but so is the feeling of having some control, this is why drinking becomes much more prevalent in statistic nations: getting drunk is one of the only things they can control.
Another factor is the demeaning of maleness, this is so prevalent in our society that it’s become unconscious. Just look at guys in commercials: incompetent, dumber than any woman or child, and otherwise a buffoon.
Consider how many boys get drugged because they act like... boys. Consider what happens if you bring up something that is constitutionally-illegal that the government is doing, usually under statute, and how easily dismissed your arguments are. (Obama’s eligibility, Fast & Furious, lots of state courts, lots of state governments.)
Games are one of the few places where a guy can be unapologetically competitive; where what he does matters (”I just saved the world!”).”
Your analysis is a great insight. Thanks.
Yes, he does seem to have the classic symptoms. We were discussing that on another thread. Usually hits around this guy’s age. (the type that usually hits young men in their 20s, also hereditary) Maybe that’s why his mother may have made such a comment when she said they had the right person. She knew he was schizophrenic, but there isn’t much she can do about it. Who knows, maybe he was terrorizing the family.
The Black Bloc thing has not been proven, it’s just hearsay.
It does matter if he is schizo—he can claim insanity.
We can call that collision a psychotic break. At least, that's what might be happening in his unwired cell right about now.
He'd been better off, if he's actually as intelligent as so many have made him out to be, if he'd spent at least a day in prison, somewhere along the way. That's an intelligence test, if there ever was one.
Intelligent people who spend even a short time in prison do not want to go back.
Check this out Occupy Wall Street Names Colorado Massacre Shooter James Holmes as Occupy Black Bloc Memberhttp://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2909149/posts
Actually, 300% is lowball estimate; when the governments of Switzerland and Sweden did their studies on the connection between cannabis use and schizophrenia, the chance of going crazy was 600%!
Go look it up, since you’re a doubter.
http://www.schizophrenia.com/prevention/streetdrugs.html
Check out #96. The studies, which you just happened to “miss”, covered decades.
Go to #96.
IOW he’s nuts Doc
I know nothing about you except that, based solely on your comment, you have never had a family member with severe mental illness.
A family cannot force any person over the age of 18 into treatment. Mental illness, unlike physical illness, often makes its victims feel better, not worse, and they are unwilling to seek help.
Unless a family (or law enforcement, if it comes to that) can convince a judge that the individual is a danger to himself or others, there is no recourse. In olden days, these folks were locked in the attic. Now they are set loose on society. And there is noting a family, often victimized and aware, can do.
Over and over, these untreated loons hurt other people because there is currently no way to get them off the streets. The Capitol shootings a few years back, the West Virginia shooter, the Tucson shooter — they are among us, and there’s no legal way to act pre-emptively.
You are probably intelligent and caring, but you are ignorant of this very real problem in our society. I sincerely hope you never have to learn first-hand what it’s like for a family.
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