Comment on Tumbler Ridge Shooter Created Mall Shooting Simulator in Roblox
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks agoCare to elaborate?
Comment on Tumbler Ridge Shooter Created Mall Shooting Simulator in Roblox
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks agoCare to elaborate?
tomenzgg@midwest.social 5 weeks ago
Of course.
Basically, any study of mass shootings within the last decade all always draw the same conclusion: they are not driven, as a rule, by mental illness. In general, mental illness accounts for 25% of cases (and that’s for mental illness, in general) but the mental illness itself is generally incidental. But, of course, most people have a particular mental illness in mind when they mention it in this context and that’s severe mental illness, generally psychosis. The previous link mentions this as only being present in 5% of cases though this other source mentions 10%.
Regardless, these are clearly minority level numbers and, even if we wanted to stretch things and pretend they were higher for the sake of argument, still well and beyond below 50% as to make saying that mental illness, primarily, is to blame – end of story – just inherently untrue.
But, moreover – and the far more important part! –, the thing that shouldn’t be lost here is that the claim that mental illness is the cause has caught on as such a popular talking point because it’s easier to scapegoat.
It’s a simple answer that, for those unfamiliar, is going to make, supposedly, intuitive sense. The politicians like it – for much the same reason they like blaming violent media – because it doesn’t force them to do anything about the actual root issues (the social conditions that drive people to this desperation or create the far right ideas that become so popular that people write entire political manifestos beforehand) and it works so well as a scapegoat because people with psychosis are foreign (and, therefore, hard to understand) for the generally (more) mentally abled population.
The fact is that schizophrenics are overwhelmingly more likely to be victimized with violence than to be committers of it; but framing violent events like these as being driven by mental illness helps to prop up the misconception and ensure that people with severe mental illness are misunderstood.
Anyway, they were close because the beginning of their comment is spot on only to settle so assuredly on incorrect information but, more over, an unquestioned stereotype that causes real harm due to it being based on erroneous information.
JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 5 weeks ago
Most people tend to agree that a person that decides to kill a bunch of random people and then themselves for no good reason is mentally ill, even if they haven’t been officially diagnosed with anything specific.
Because normal, healthy people don’t tend to just go “welp, I feel like some good old casual Friday night mass murdering and suicide tonight”.
And in this specific case, she was not a particularity stable individual.
tomenzgg@midwest.social 5 weeks ago
An appeal to general consensus and definition by crowdsourcing is inherently anti-scientific.
I mean, clearly the scientist is who study these things didn’t draw that conclusion.
Being in a bad mental state is not, by any definition, an equivalent to being mentally ill. Mental illnesses are particular things, not a general blanket attribute for that person being “different from us” and non-standard.
Alright? I already said that some cases certainly involve mental illness. Your anecdotal pointing out won’t change the statistics and studies, though: those a minority if cases and generally incidental.
But you have demonstrated for all of us scapegoating in action: your entire comment disregards science and evidence-based assessment for an anecdotal definition based on a sense of normalcy that allows us to say, “Fundamentally, those people are just different from us. Normal people wouldn’t do that.”
It isn’t helpful, though.
Blindsite@lemmy.today 5 weeks ago
So you wrote a long text wall to say what? Mental illness isn’t the cause of mass shootings? Then what would you say is?
tomenzgg@midwest.social 5 weeks ago
Since 6 whole paragraphs were too daunting to read, I’d be happy to summarize the sources I’d linked to for you in just one manageable paragraph.
The primary cause, in over 50% of cases was an individual undergoing an acute stressor. Trauma could also contribute but, as I mentioned previously, mental illness is rarely a primary cause, even in cases of trauma. But, primarily, it’s an acute stressor.
This also isn’t anything I’m saying; I’m just citing the conclusions drawn by studies on the matter.
KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks ago
Mmmm I dunno if I can necessarily agree either way on this one.
The idea that a person with no mental issues (including a plethora of physical disorders that can cause mental changes) would just decide to pick up a gun and kill a bunch of people for no reason seems far fetched to me. I feel like it is much more likely that majority these individuals suffered from a mental break of some type, but were not in a position to be identified beforehand. I do notice though that your source isn’t inherently saying that mentally healthy individuals are committing the majority of mass shootings, it states that ~25% are diagnosed with a mental illness, ~25% are attributed to substance abuse (which I believe would potentially also fall under mental illness, as SUD is recognized as a mental illness)
I do find it odd that we are apparently splitting hairs between someone with “mental illness” and someone “responding to a severe and acute stressor” though. If the response was to eat their hair, self harm, lock themselves in their room and refuse to leave, or many other extreme stress response, this would be considered mental illness, but because they haven’t seen a psychiatrist beforehand, mass murder doesn’t fit?
That said, I fully admit this is an uneducated understanding of what mental illness is. I am more than willing to admit I am incorrect. But if that’s the case, it feels like we are simply arguing over what is considered a mental illness.