on recent discussions

[the_siobhan]

Since this seems to be the topic on everybody's lips at the moment.

Of the people who have been arrested after a shooting spree, have any of them been diagnosed with a mental illness?

Of the people who were killed while on a shooting spree, is there any prior evidence that they were in fact suffering from a mental illness? (Let's assume just for the sake of this discussion that shooting a bunch of people does not in itself count as evidence.)

I see a lot of people on both sides of the gun-control argument saying that lack of access to mental health services is a causative factor in these shootings. So are people making that argument because the shooters are being diagosed after the fact, or is everybody accepting it as a given because "nobody sane would do that".

Comments

[greylock]

Of the people who were killed while on a shooting spree, is there any prior evidence that they were in fact suffering from a mental illness?

Of the people who were killed? I doubt it, they were kids.

gun-control argument
I guess, in Canada, you cannot have a sensible argument.

I guess, are there signs? Probably?
Is this a public health issue?
No, Crazy violent people are going to be crazy, violent.

You need to look at rates of crime in sensible areas, like here, to unpack the statistics.
When crazy violent people go crazy, when they have access to automatic weapons, there will be mass murder,
When crazy violent people go crazy, when they have not access to automatic weapons, there will probably not be mass murder.

It isn't an issue of crazy.

[the_siobhan]

The people who were killed while committing the killing spree. In the Connecticut situation the shooter was killed, so if there is a diagnosis it had to happen prior.

I guess, in Canada, you cannot have a sensible argument.

Why do you say that?

[greylock]

Why do you say that?

Proximity to the US gun nuts.

[the_siobhan]

Ah. Well, we can have sensible conversations, I think. Just not with Americans.