n/t

To you, the mere thought of intentionally harming another human may seem to demonstrate a person suffers from mental illness, but that is hardly a consensus position, either among psychiatrists or the general public. Further, mental illness most commonly manifests in ways that do not produce violence against others, and are in fact much more likely to lead to person doing some harm to themselves, either by direct action or by more indirect and subtle effects on their lives of the ways in which their symptoms play out.

RIP Kelly Thomas

in this country.
That is so easy to say.
I work for a county alcohol, drug and mental health services dept.
By law we have to give services to everyone who comes to us.
We use Medicaid, Medicare, private insurance, federal and state grants, sales tax and vehicle license fees and county general funds. We don't turn anyone away yet we always need more income to do it.
I hate when people say we need to take care of our mental illness problem.
We can't give services unless someone comes to us.
So come to us and pay more taxes for mental health if you really want to do something!

People who show violent tendencies need to undergo treatment and not just locked up and caged like an animal for extended periods of times. Other countries have done this for years with very good results

You say we need to treat ....... I ask how?
Grab them and take them away or what?
What we need to do is stop the misinformation campaign and stigmatizing of people with mental problems. Until we see mental illness as we see other illnesses we will continue the anecdotal stories and the shaming of people who have mental illness.

Judges absolutely have the right and did this in the past quite often, at least until housing criminals became a money making venture. You can also force regular citizens who have not been arrested or sentenced for a crime all you need is for a police officer to submit a mental health evaluation form.

What people say is we would have less gun violence if we did more with mental health. The shooters we are talking about are good guys with guns who shoot someone and become bad guys with a gun. You are not going to stop gun violence like that. The common denominator isn't mental illness it is guns. We won't do anything about that so I say give it up!

the grocery store or Chuck E Cheese?

How about folks like Zimmerman, Dunn, or those who obsess about the most lethal loads, train on targets that resemble humans, talk about clearing a room, practice drawing their weapon, belong to the NRA, use guns for intimidation of others, are really compensating for something, vote based upon gunz, discuss best gun for people fleeing a natural disaster like a hurricane, and worse?

How about someone who covets one of these, or a bunch of these?




If one doesn't want to tag them with "mental illness" (as if it is something awful, which it is not), then at least acknowledge their anti-social behavior.

The handle and the cartridge are place in a "walking" position, with a big dick in front. Of course cons want this.

Most murderers are not mentally ill, the mentally ill already face enough discrimination as it is please don't try to pin all murders on them as it only makes things more difficult for the people who suffer from mental illness.

The large majority of mentally ill people are non-violent and all you need to do is look at the history of war to see that it is not too difficult to convince people who are not mentally ill to kill others.

But people who commit murders are obviously suffering from factors in the brain that those who do not commit murders

The large majority of murders are committed by people who show no signs of mental illness. Once again, I suggest that you look at the history of war and how many millions of ordinary people have been trained to kill. While killing in war may not technically be murder from a legal standpoint, whenever there is a war lots of people are killed for no reason at all. Civilians are shot, sometimes villages are burned to the ground, people are tortured, the atrocities committed are often even more morally reprehensible than criminal acts of murder and most of these killings are performed by people who do not have a mental illness.

Why not just go take a warm shower?

Mentally ill is not the question. The question is "able to distinguish right from wrong."

You pretty much have to be seeing things that aren't there and hearing voices to cop an insanity plea.

I've dealt with stone-blooded killers who just viewed murder as part of business. They were legally sane.

It can be, and is, affected by chemicals in the body, whether induced artificially or made, organically, by the body.

As others have posted, most mentally ill people only harm themselves. Those who go on shooting rampages or start wars for no reason are properly labled "psychotic," which is quite different.

In fact, saying so is a HUGE factor with the discrimination against the mentally ill (who are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators), because what you're saying is that ONLY the mentally ill commit murder.

Inability to determine right from wrong is a mental illness, but it's not the only reason people commit murder or manslaughter. Contract killings, gang violence, and hate crimes can be killings for business, territory, intimidation, or racial hatred, which are not mental illnesses.

There's a reason for degrees of murder and manslaughter. Some murderers and killers are more culpable than others, and perfectly reasonable people without mental illness commit cold-blooded acts of murder.

...who do so as a matter of course in their daily regimen. Sometimes it's in their job description. ie: military and mafia. Watch a few episodes of Sopranos or just about any recent action film. I'm not trying to say that life is like the movies, but, in fact, it is.

The meaning of life and death varies from person to person. Sometimes those differences can be separated by gender. In my experience, females seem to take death within a family, harder than their male counterparts.

I'm not a killer. I'm a peaceful warrior on this earth. I take wasps and spiders outside rather than kill them. (I'm no longer as kind about mice, which effectively makes me a full fledged hunter.)

People handle the intricacies of life differently. Some of us like to fish. Some of us don't. That doesn't make one side or the other a candidate for mental illness.

I think you need to pull in the reins on your definition.

TYY

That's a diagnosis that has to be made on medical evidence.

and most of my coworkers were equally morbid when they had difficult shifts.

None of us ever did it, of course, but we did think about it while we worked to keep them alive.

So "just the thought" doesn't qualify. Start using thought crimes as proof of disease requiring quarantine and you'll have nearly the whole population in rubber rooms.

However, there are a lot of people out there with hair trigger tempers and poor impulse control. Because of them, we are going to find out that a well armed public is a slaughtered public.

If treated many people can control over aggressive behavior and out of control tempers. Maybe not all murders can be prevented with treatment for various disorders but a great many can. But I stand by my assertion that gunning down an individual over texting or loud music is not normal mental health.

You've already got them outside the stadium.

Big difference.

But for anyone to decide that is within their right to take another person's life, denotes some sort of mental illness.
I know that courts don't recognize that.
I just don't see how a sane person could take the life of another unless it was not self defense.



Edit'

and murder their spouse because (1) they are not attracted to them anymore, (2) they will get a big life insurance payoff, and (3) think that they have planned the perfect crime and will get away with it?

Unrecognized by courts, of course.

then by definition such a person is mentally ill.

Sadly, cruelty and greed are more the norm for human beings than kindness and generosity. For an example of that fact, just look at mankind's obsession with wars and all the viciousness they bring.

Human species is better than that.

But some just prefer to keep their heads in the sand. Who's to say that's not the better way. Being aware can be very painful. Oh, and I had a very happy childhood. So no early issues here, just reality checks.

when confronted with an immediate threat, is just that--instinctual... Hardly mental illness, though clearly not all self-defense claims really reflect the truth. Granted, law does not consider self-defense killings as "murder", but they are killings nonetheless.

Conversely, those who kill in a pre-meditated fashion because of greed, revenge, or other, are arguably not mentally ill. Just motivated by very ugly aspects of life.

but we probably could for serial or mass murderers.