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<p>Who can say what goes on in the mind of a mentally ill person? He might have, or he might not have. But going the pressure cooker route is not as easy as spraying bullets. Bombs don’t always work. It’s easier to kill people with guns, and IMO we ought to make it less easy for deranged people to kill other people-- and we ought to make it harder for depressed people to kill themselves, too. That wouldn’t stop all deranged people, but it would lessen the death toll. </p>
<p>It’s the mental health apologists, actingmgt. They believe that even someone with severe mental illness ought to be able to go out and buy just as many guns as anyone else, because to do otherwise is to restrict the freedom of the mentally ill. Same reasoning that defends keeping information from family, and reluctance to establish conservatorships even after people have demonstrated inability to shelter/feed/clothe themselves due to their mental illness. The same mental health professionals who ask suicidal patients if they promise not to commit suicide – and then leave them with the means to do so because it is important to trust what the severely mentally ill patient says rather than checking with family or even checking out the person’s facebook account. </p>
<p>The very same mental health apologists who tell your family that the staff are having trouble sleeping and working after the patient committed suicide while in their hospital. </p>
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Ok, so we’ve taken all the guns away from the deranged people. What do we do with those who aren’t deranged? Those who may have anger problems? Or are just “bad people”?</p>
<p>I guess you’re talking to me, Niquii? My preferred solution is to make it much more difficult for anyone to buy guns. Good people, bad people, happy people, depressed people, angry people, mellow people.</p>
<p>PG - Nearly every person he encountered in his entire life seemingly saw the sticker including his grandmother who said he was a severely disturbed 5 year old. He apparently had a slew of therapists, counselors, and psychiatrists beginning when he was 8. If they can’t see stickers I don’t what the point of them is at all. Good job. And, I absolutely do think most of these crazed killers are clearly mentally ill long before they snap. And, it doesn’t seem all that hard to pick a point to draw the line and say, “No more guns for you, sorry.” But, I guess not.</p>
<p>The only way to prevent these killings from happening is for people who are acquainted with these potential killers to do something, anything, that might derail their plans. Basically, that means becoming more aware, attuned, interested and caring towards everyone you meet, and being willing to inconvenience yourself for the sake of helping someone else. A million new laws won’t prevent a person who wants to kill from killing.</p>
<p>@Cardinal Fang, did you read the guy’s manifesto? He planned like crazy, and yeah, had magical thinking. His guns were supposed to kill as magically as walking down the street in IV was supposed to cause blondes to throw themselves at him. I’m sure if he planned a pressure cooker bomb he’d expect it to be devastatingly effective. I take it from a summary of your comments that you think NO ONE should be able to get guns, since you don’t think mental health should be a trigger. I disagree that restricting the rights of everyone is better than discriminatorilly restricting the rights of fewer. I think restriction of rights should be targetted and individually justifiable. However, people will disagree on this issue.</p>
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<p>Certainly, but just because he’d expect it to be effective wouldn’t make it effective.</p>
<p>@Cardinal Fang and neither were his guns, he had 400 rounds in his car doing nothing. But the ineffectiveness didn’t stop him from doing it thinking it would work more ambitiously. My point is that the guns were not the focal point of his murder spree.</p>
<p>Guns were not the focal point, but guns did most of the damage. Most of the people killed, and most of the people injured, were killed or injured with a gun.</p>
<p>@Cardinal Fang only the way it played out His initial plans gave ink to the idea of driving an SUV through crowds of pedestrians, and there is only ONE more killed, by guns, himself, than by other things. If he was not focused on guns, not having guns would not have kept the tragedy from happening, it would have just changed the manner and venue. Regardless, the issue to me is not to stop innocent people from having guns.</p>
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<p>How on earth does anyone have the knowledge to make this statement? You can have no idea what they did or didn’t do. Apparently they wouldn’t let him stay at home while they were away. I think that it is probably safe to say that this was a result of “holding him accountable” for some past behavior.</p>
<p>Personally, if I had a kid with spectrum disorder and at least normal if not superior intelligence like ER, coupled with a desire to fit in, and he was not able to gain entrance to a regular college, I would think that having him live in a college town with roommates and take classes at a CC while receiving therapy would be an excellent way to help him gradually develop the skills he would need to move on with his life. They supported him financially, paid for therapy, AND kept tabs on him, AND intervened by calling the police when he seemed to be spiraling downward. They could not have him involuntarily committed. The police wouldn’t act. What more were they supposed to do? Chain him in their basement? That’s illegal.</p>
<p>A couple of years ago, I was involved in attempting to save a friend who was having a psychotic episode, characterized by intense paranoia. She had left her house, and was sleeping in people’s garages, then ultimately walking cross-country and in the woods, maybe eating berries and drinking out of streams. Her husband could not get the police to take her into custody against her will until she was at the berry-eating stage. Finally, she was hospitalized against her will, but that only lasted for two weeks. (And extending it to that length was extraordinarily difficult.) I know some other people who have committed suicide within days after signing themselves out of psychiatric hospitalization. There was simply nothing the family could do about it. Begging and pleading does no good. The hands of the legal system are basically tied.</p>
<p>“The only way to prevent these killings from happening is for people who are acquainted with these potential killers to do something, anything, that might derail their plans. Basically, that means becoming more aware, attuned, interested and caring towards everyone you meet, and being willing to inconvenience yourself for the sake of helping someone else.”</p>
<p>This is basically the message my UC student who attended last night’s vigil is getting as the takeaway. I will tell you that it’s being received as basically unsatisfactory. That’s the significantly shortened version minus a lot of ranting about what won’t happen in the future anymore than it happened in the past.</p>
<p>To have someone him involuntarily committed does not require police action, btw. But, I don’t think they had a clue he was dangerous.</p>
<p>Asking people to be caring to others who rebuff their attempts, are verbally abusive (as his manifesto demonstrates his being) and throw coffee and spray orange juice on people who did nothing at all but enjoy their life is asking a bit much. One person reports reaching out to him and bringing him to a party and all he did was stare. Another said he tried to comfort him when he was beat up, and got yelled at. I actually think staying away from someone like that is not a bad idea.</p>
<p>The three sets of roommates who moved out before the existing ones are still alive.</p>
<p>Flossy,</p>
<p>Did you hear any other ideas from the students? What would they like to see happen as a result of this tragedy?</p>
<p>I can’t help noting that anyone who would kill multiple people they know and live with, using a hammer and machete, has got to be one of the scariest people I’ve ever heard of.</p>
<p>Bay - Mostly the students would like to go to a school in an environment free of people who are prone to psychotic episodes. Even the “minor meltdown” ones. And, they know it’s not reality but telling on creepy guys or being asked to befriend them is not going fly. Roommate matching also needs some serious re-examination. Those boys wanted out long before the tragedy. </p>
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<p>How, precisely, does one get an adult who refuses to cooperate at all to enter a clinic, hospital, or doctor’s office, other than involving the police? Tell me how you’ve seen it done.</p>
<p>A psychiatrist in some states can authorize a commitment, I believe. But, yeah, I guess if they are violently going nuts you would need a straight-jacket situation that involves cops. But, not a police decision to hospitalize. They would be assisting in the intervention at that point.</p>
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<p>While being caring towards everyone you meet is a laudable goal in itself, I’m not seeing how this advice would help this kind of killing from happening. </p>
<p>We don’t know how to fix people like Rodger. We don’t even know how to fix the kind of people that Rodger’s mother must have initially though her son was: non-violent autistic people who are of normal to superior intelligence, but who lack the social and organizational skills to succeed in college or the workplace. Maybe if we knew how to fix the latter, they wouldn’t turn into the former: but we don’t know how to fix them.</p>
<p>Reports are that Rodger had a job through California Department of Rehab. That argues a lot of parental involvement, or possibly school involvement. One does not get such jobs without a diagnosis of a specific named disability, and without someone who cares navigating the system.</p>
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Well, none of that is going to happen. It’s part of the healing process for the school community to be made to feel that they have a part in making changes. It’s the feeling part that’s important, though, since those changes aren’t going to happen. It’s so they don’t feel powerless. And as for roommate matching – wasn’t this a private apartment complex? They expect a non-university business to carefully match roommates? </p>