@revelette1,
revelette1 wrote:
Perhaps there is a tic for tac thing going on? If so, that would be very tragic in itself and need to be addressed. I am sorry for the people of London and their many tragedies they have had to suffer of late, too much.
Well, I think it's pretty safe to assume that, unless this fellow is a true psychotic with a very tenuous grip on reality; who somehow made a connection between Muslims and the common paranoid schizophrenic delusion of a perceived effort to seize control of his mind, this attack was some sort of response to Islamist terrorist incidents in the UK. Obviously still very early in the investigation but the fact that multiple additional arrests haven't been made suggests this guy was a lone wolf and not part of an organized operation.
Of course, that his rampage was in response to Islamist attacks doesn't signify that he is fine mental health. As has been reported, he will be undergoing a mental health examination so it seems there will, at some point, be a determination of his mental condition. This alone distinguishes this attack from the sort of Islamist terrorist attacks the UK and the rest of the world has, tragically, experienced far too often of late: The attackers very rarely survive the attack and so mental health examinations are rarely a factor in any investigation.
What's striking is the degree to which his heinous endeavor failed. I read somewhere that the only man who is reported to have died was receiving first aid at the time of the attack, and therefore his subsequent death may not have been directly related to the rampage. No solace, I'm sure, for his loved ones if he succumbed to a heart attack rather than being struck by a van, but I would have expected the number of fatalities to be higher. Greatly fortunate that they were not, but was it a matter of luck or is it just more difficult to pull off a "successful" attack like this than we might imagine? It's difficult to believe anyone really needs or receives training on how to mow down pedestrians with a vehicle, but perhaps "instruction" actually is provided at the Islamist websites we often learn were frequented by the people responsible for the attacks
If this fellow is, as I suspect, a lone wolf, it's not likely that the authorities will be any more effective in preventing similar future attacks, than they've been in preventing lone wolf Islamist attacks. Even with extensive databases of suspected terrorists and hundreds being actively investigated, the pool of potential killers is depressingly large and the police resources too limited to make unfailing prevention (by the criminal justice and intelligence agencies alone) ever possible. The UK and other nations could double their resources over night and it would still be an impossible task. Other measures are required, but what precisely they may be is something all governments are struggling with.