(May 24, 2014)
Seven people were killed, including the gunman, and seven others injured on Friday night after a bloody drive-by shooting on the crowded streets of a small college town near Santa Barbara, as a man the police described as mentally disturbed methodically opened fire in a 10-minute spasm of terror.[emphasis added]
The gunman was found dead with a bullet wound to his head after his black BMW crashed into another car. He had exchanged gunfire with deputy sheriffs in Isla Vista, near the University of California, Santa Barbara.
A family lawyer tentatively identified the gunman as Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old son of a Hollywood director.
The lawyer, Alan Shifman, told reporters gathered outside the home of Mr. Rodger’s father that Mr. Rodger’s parents had called the police about a month ago to express their concerns over his YouTube videos “regarding suicide and the killing of people.” He said that police officers had interviewed Mr. Rodger, but concluded that he posed no danger. The lawyer said they had found him to be a “perfectly polite, kind and wonderful human.”
Why didn't anybody stop him?
John Lot says that:
... As of February 2014, Santa Barbara County had 53 permits out of an adult population of 337,000 -- a rate of 0.016 percent. The rate was virtually unchanged from 2011.
Nobody, not even the police, were able to stop him until he was ready to be stopped.
Nobody wanted to be his neighbor. Nor his girl-friend, either:
Rejected by women, he posted several videos on YouTube (all since deleted by YouTube as unsuitable). The NYTIMES has posted a copy of the video, as did the LA Daily Times. And a southern news paper, and probably several other publications. His "day of retribution" speech, filmed in the drivers' seat in his Beemer, was smug and vitrolic. It was carefully staged. He was obviously quoting from a speech which he had pre-written and practiced over and over ... compulsively.
Why couldn't he get a date?
He was a creep!
Pronounced sane, but still a killer?
Wounded seven people at random, and in the process killed six other people. Whether he killed himself, or was killed by police in the second shoot-out, is not known now.
It's time that people started out with the familiar question: "WHY?"
Good looking, cool car, what's not to like? (Except that he was creepy.)
The idea that police and psychiatrists can predict future actions is ludicrous. And in this case, nobody knew that he was capable of murder.
What's the word? Sociopath?
How about Evil?
Folks in America tend to scoff at the concept that some people are evil. Nobody knows why we walk around wearing blinders. We have evidence every day that evil exists. Yet the closest we can come to comprehending the concept is psycho-jargon.
DSM-5
This from the American Psychiatric Association at psych.org:
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is the standard classification of mental disorders used byThe manual (which you can buy from Amazon for $113.24 - I've looked at copies, and it is at the same time weird and unintelligible. Much like Mr. Roger. I guess you have a class in Psychobabble School to interpret it. The police who talked talked to this creep probably couldn't understand it, either.mental health professionals in the United States. It is intended to be applicable in a wide array of contexts and used by clinicians and researchers of many different orientations (e.g., biological, psychodynamic, cognitive, behavioral, interpersonal, family/systems). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) is the current edition and has been designed for use across clinical settings (inpatient ,outpatient , partial hospital, consultation-liaison, clinic, private practice, and primary care), with community populations. It can be used by a wide range of health and mental health professionals, including psychiatrists and other physicians, psychologists,social workers , nurses, occupational and rehabilitation therapists, and counselors. It is also a necessary tool for collecting and communicating accurate public health statistics.
The DSM consists of three major components: the diagnostic classification, the diagnostic criteria sets, and the descriptive text.
Had the concerned family consulted a "Mental Health Professional" about the boy? That also is unclear at this time. The psychs aren't psychic; they will be the first to admit (under duress) that they can't reliably predict future behavior. In fact, except under certain circumstances involving a degree of conviction that the patient presents a clear threat to himself or others, and unless asked directly, they can't even tell the family what opinion the psych has formed about the probably future actions of the patient.
On the other hand, if you've ever met anyone who was purely evil ... you probably could hazard a guess and decide to stay away from them, but you couldn't reliably predict that they would go on a rampage.
They say, that "violence never solved anything". They are idiots. Violence solves a lot of problems, including the case in point. It's just that the 'resolution' may not be satisfactory to anyone.
Every time we read about one of these rampages, we wonder why the creep didn't just cut right to the chase and kill himself first. Admit it, that has crossed your mind more than once.
In the actual fact, it's a fair bet that some people who find themselves so ... conflicted ... do exactly that. Usually, they do it with the gun, for whatever purpose they originally acquired it.
Then The People start raving about how often guns are used for suicide, and why that alone is sufficient cause to restrict them. Sometimes, as odious at it is, solitary suicide (not accompanied by a preceding rampage) might be the least devastating consequence of whatever is going on in that warped/sick/evil mind.
And that's all I have to say about that.
1 comment:
The code of the West. You always allow the bad guy to start to draw first. Fair is fair.
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