Virginia Tech Debacle/ Work of a Deranged Man............Or

In most great catastrophes, there are multiple causes that combine in just such a way, that removing any one of those causes would result in another outcome.

It's possible that it takes a delicate balance of psychopathy to produce this result. Maybe a dash of autism, an anti-social personality disorder, and a naturally shy disposition is enough? Who knows....? I'm pretty sure my local newspaper headline "The Face of Evil" may be a little off target though.


This guy killed 35 and injured 37...interesting parallels...

Yes, I think one of Bryant's diagnoses was Asperger's, which is an autism spectrum disorder.


People with such diagnoses are generally not dangerous, but frequently suffer from severe harassment at school, and I have seen kids like that with severe PTSD from it.

Bryant had a whole lot else going on, too.....but the characteristic lack of empathy causes real concerns when folk with such disorders DO become aggressive.

Asperger's folk also frequently (it is one of the diagnostic markers) have unusual speech.


Killing animals is a real marker for elevated concern about someone's being dangerous. (The scary triad is that, bedwetting and fire setting)


However, the threshold for being able to commit someone is generally pretty high, and the law always, in countries like mine and yours, has enormous difficulty acting unless someone has committed an offence.

One can't keep people in mental hospitals forever.


I am obliged to warn anyone threatened by a client of mine, and to alert police if a person who is unwell and making threats has weapons.....the police here can remove guns, and it is much harder for people to replace them.

Sounds as though Cho could easily have bought more guns in Virginia, even if they had been removed.

The diagnosis on this kid is he was a frick'n TOOL, who sounds like Napolean Dynamite and writes like a 7th grade goth kid. Too bad his gun didn't jam, so some girl could have knocked it out of his hand and kicked his ass.

The worst part of the aftermath is the media, who is giving him exactly what he wanted. NBC's actions are tastless. The same president who fires Imus for saying "nappy headed ho's" gives the ok to sensationlize this f'n moron....instead of just handing over the "press kit" this tool put together to the FBI, they make copies, put "NBC" on everything so no matter who replays it, the NBC name is there, and throw it on the news as fast as possible to get ratings.

Now 15 year old social rejects everywhere who also can't get laid are going to look at this dick as some inspiration, and trigger more "copycats." If common sense prevailed over revenues, NBC never would have put his gay-ass pictures & video on the air. Or at least waited until the parents got to bury their kids...because I'm sure they really want to see images of the last thing their children saw.

Instead of spending the $$ on guns, all he had to do was get a couple hookers.

Yeah, he shoulda contacted you - as should all confused, crazy dangerous young people. Listening to you would set 'em straight. You have so much constructive to say.

An "ignore" function would do this website good, for people like jackass here who bring nothing to the table in life.

Moving along, I just read what I think is a useful article in Scientific American on the flaws in the US mental health system. That New York law sounds like a good idea to me.



http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?alias=shooting-shows-gaps-in-us&chanID=sa003&modsrc=reuters

SCIENCE NEWS
April 19, 2007

Shooting shows gaps in U.S. mental health safety net

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Mental health professionals complain their hands are tied in two ways when they try to help people like Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui -- a lack of funding for mental health services in general, and laws that makes it tough to treat people against their will.

They say the 23-year-old student's shooting rampage sheds new light on flaws in the U.S. mental health system.

"Our mental health system failed this young man," said Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain researcher at Indiana University School of Medicine in Bloomington, Indiana.

Cho drew the attention of campus police in late 2005 amid complaints that he was annoying women students. He spent some time in a psychiatric hospital because of worries he was suicidal.
"Funding for mental health services in the United States has dropped in half over the past 25 years," Dr. Christopher Flynn, director of Virginia Tech's Thomas Cook Counseling Center, told a news conference.

"We have seen, every time there's a cut in public health funding, the first people that are cut are mental health providers, and we do our entire system a disservice by continuing to do that."

Dr. Steven Sharfstein, past president of the American Psychiatric Association, said the problems are both financial and legal.

"What was a red flag for me is that he was seen in a mental health facility and held for one day. That is a symptom of the dysfunction of our mental health system," said Sharfstein, who is president of Sheppard Pratt Health System in Baltimore.

"If someone isn't readily seen as imminently dangerous, there is no time and money set aside to do a more in-depth and effective diagnosis. He may have been hiding a paranoid psychosis that with a few days of observation might have come out."

PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS

The National Alliance on Mental Illness in a 2006 report gave the U.S. mental health system the below-average grade of "D."

"Untreated mental health is the nation's No. 1 public health crisis," Michael Fitzpatrick, the group's executive director, said in a telephone interview.

"In recent years, states like the Commonwealth of Virginia have systematically reduced their funding for mental health services," he added.

"The reality is that in many communities, it is impossible to get mental health services unless you have been arrested," Fitzpatrick said.

Even if treatment is available, patients often are too sick to believe they need treatment. And unless a patient presents an imminent threat, many states prohibit involuntary treatment.

"Unfortunately, we live in a society that says as long as you are not a danger to yourself or someone else you can be as psychotic as you want to be," Taylor said.

Exceptions include states such as New York, which allow court-ordered treatment called assisted outpatient treatment for patients who cannot recognize their own need for care.

New York's law is named in memory of Kendra Webdale, a 32-year-old Buffalo woman pushed to her death in front of a subway train in 1999 by a man with severe mental illness who had a history of avoiding treatment.

Mental health advocates fear the shooting might produce a backlash against people with mental illness.

"Studies have shown that it is incredibly rare for someone with a mental illness to commit gross acts of violence, especially on such a scale as the Virginia Tech shootings," the U.S. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association said in a statement.

My best friend's daughter is autistic and speaks just fine... only the words don't seem to mean anything to her. She knows certain sounds will get her certain things, but doesn't discern any difference between "How was school today" How are you" or "Hello". She does learn names, and can sing her favorite kids songs flawlessly, but the individual words may as well be meaningless unless it's something important like "Fries", "Juice", "Outside"... not unlike a dog really.
The experts say she's highly functional because she shows some emotion and likes hugs and closeness, where most autistic kids are between indifferent and not wanting any affection at all. The impression I've gotten from second hand and reading I've done on my own; is an autistic person would never care enough about anything to do something like this. The impression that I get is they want what they want, love their routines, and couldn't rightly care less what you think of them. Even the affection Jeff's daughter shows, I'd wager is a good deal of monkey see, monkey do reaction from having love showered on her. She is a happy go lucky little doll by the way, just not like other kids.

you got it right in every sense

it pisses me off that he didn't just stick the gun in his face at about 6:00 am and save everybody this grief

I do concur. On the Napolean Dynamite part, too.

I couldn't sit through Napoleon Dynamite... but the diagnosis looks pretty sound.

Right, so we'll just lock up any kid that looks like a tool. 'specially goths.

Sounds reasonable

Forgive my ignorance but what is a TOOL?

Here is a very good description from the urbandictionary (definations of popular slang) -

A person, typically male, who says or does things that cause you to give them a 'what-are-you-even-doing- here' look. The 'what-are-you-even-doing- here' look is classified by a glare in the tool's direction and is usually accompanied by muttering of how big of a tool they are. The tool is usually someone who is unwelcome but no one has the balls to tell them to get lost. The tool is alwasys making comments that are out-of-place, out-of-line or just plain stupid. The tool is always trying too hard to fit in, and because of this, never will. However, the tool is useful because you can use them for things; money, rides, ect.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tool

I think the most accurate description is simply someone that is not generally respected but is used like a tool rather than as a friend.

An even better idea is to give all faculty members yearly mental health evaluations. That way, some of the crappers can be eliminated from the Universities.

A tool is another word for an idiot.

Mention on one of the blogs flloating around the intenet was that Cho was a soft tool. What's a "soft tool"?

I generally think of tool as synonymous with dick or penis, in the not so literal sense like Slappy's idiot definition. I would guess that's where soft tool came from.

Soft tool, that's a new one to me...