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Guns are a 'means to' carry out intentions.
Did the shooter recognize/witness his thoughts? Did he regard his thoughts as 'given/imperatives'?
Pavlov's dogs salivated to the sound of a bell. We react to perceptions and to thoughts.
Lack of 'thought recognition' is not 'closet' mental illness.
We react to perceptions 'naturally', but we learned to react to thoughts. (Maybe we better reexamine that 'habit').
Can we learn to recognize dysfunctional/irrational thoughts BEFORE using/believing them?
We need to recognize 'before' we can OVERRIDE. That's why 'Thought Recognition' is important.
Are you saying that the gun made him do it?? Sort of like how driving a sports car may invite someone to really step on the gas to see how quick it goes?
I suppose the healthy mind sees a gun as a means to protect while the deranged sees it as a means to destroy.
Either way it is a sick mind that kills an innocent person just because.
I wrote; "Guns are a 'means' to carry out intentions". What don't you understand?
If your intent is to hunt and kill rabbits, a gun will serve better than a baseball bat.
If your intent is to go to a place a hundred miles from where you are, a car will serve better than walking.
Gun control is about depriving persons one 'means' of killing; they can still find other 'means'.
Gun control has value in that respect, but guns are not the only means of killing, buts it's a start to control them.
You wrote; "Either way it is a sick mind that kills an innocent person just because". ( Because of believing a dysfunctional thought? I'm against killing people.)
Were you afraid of 'bogyman' when you were a child? Did you have a sick mind, till you got better? Why were you afraid of 'bogyman'? You 'unwittingly believed' your THOUGHT was a real creature; but as soon as you RECOGNIZED your 'mistake', you corrected it and were no longer afraid. You still remember 'bogyman' but your no longer afraid; due to "thought recognition"
If you want to see that even psychologists and psychiatrists don't always recognize their own thoughts, search on line for the article; "On Being Sane In Insane Places". That'ubiquitous mistake' needs to be corrected.
Gun control could very well be like prohibition was; bootleggers and speakeasies flourished; law abiding citizens will obey that law.
What do all these young male mass murderers have in common? NO GIRLFRIEND. Many, including this one, have even written specifically about their depression or anger about this.
The Umpqua shooter wrote; "The world is against me", (he didn't have a girl friend).
"The world is against me", is a 'thought' and a component of the situation just as much as the guns he used.
Why not examine his thinking process, and not just say he was mentally ill?
He lost his right to diagnosis when he picked up a gun and killed 9 innocent people.
He's only one of many; and more to come until we can find a working solution. Once they pick up a gun with the 'intent' to kill, they are 'doomed'. They passed the intervention/prevention stage. How do they get to that stage, of 'no return'? That's the question. They "use" thoughts to get there, then they 'use' guns; so thoughts are the prerequisite to get to that stage.
What do all these young male mass murderers have in common? NO GIRLFRIEND. Many, including this one, have even written specifically about their depression or anger about this.
It's not just that they have no girlfriend, though. There are plenty of single men and women out there who can't find someone--there is NOT someone for everyone, people who say that are invariably in a relationship and always dated easily, ever notice?--and they don't run around shooting people or we would have this happening every day in every state.
They also seemed to have a warped perception of what a girlfriend is. They want Stepfords, attractive girls with no soul and no personality, just something that's a sort of possession to make them look good and feel good about themselves.
These shooters, if not outright mentally ill, don't seem to have undergone any sort of character development, where they see themselves as part of a larger whole with a responsibility to be a good person and make a contribution to society with their lives. They're just turned inward and angry because this weird little fantasy world that they imagine should be their lives, and which includes a hot babe at their beck and call, hasn't materialized.
but what you CAN do is make it difficult for folk to arm themselves
And I want to say that the people around them, including their families, should feel more obligated to speak up and point these people out as danger risks, although I don't have the answer to exactly how that can be done. It's a side effect of our system of rights that you can't prosecute someone for having the potential to do something. But you can warn others about them and watch carefully.
I remember a kid in my daughter's high school class. Used to walk around the hallways pretending he was carrying a weapon and stalk people. When he was in kindergarten and I met him for the first time, I told him my daughter would be in his class, and his response was, "I could kill your daughter." I knew his mother. Very intelligent woman, completely blind to the baby psycho she had given birth to. In third grade, he told a teacher he was going to cut her throat, and she reported him. The mother sort of rolled her eyes over it and said that he just says those things, doesn't mean anything by it, everyone is overreacting, but they had him go to a school for kids with behavioral issues until high school. I told my daughter to steer clear of him, and she said, "Oh Mom, I know. If that thing that happened at Virginia Tech happened at our high school, it would be 'Sam' who would do it."
After high school, 'Sam' went into the Marines and served in Afghanistan, and you should have heard the worry and hand-wringing coming from his mother. I thought that was the best place for someone like him to be. I heard that he was having issues when he came home and was seeking treatment. I do feel bad for the PTSD that any vet suffers, but I'm also glad that it has forced this young man into getting someone to take a close look at him, too.
Ted Kaczynksi was found because his brother suspected he was the one sending bombs to people at their homes. If friends and family see bizarre behavior, they need to say something.
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