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Today's Mass Shooting

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arthwollipot said:
In my hood we limit access to guns to only those people who have a demonstrated need for them, as far as that is possible. Some still slip through, but we in Australia have nowhere near the amount of gun crime that America has.
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I'm not talking about the means, just the indifference to life at the core of these acts. I would think that kind of thinking would manifest in other ways, if such psychos were proportionally represented. Pipe bombs at soccer games and what have you.
 
Thermal said:
I'm not talking about the means, just the indifference to life at the core of these acts. I would think that kind of thinking would manifest in other ways, if such psychos were proportionally represented. Pipe bombs at soccer games and what have you.
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And yet somehow it doesn't.
 
Thermal said:
...which brings it full circle. Unless you are saying psychopaths are inherently...what, lazy?...and will only carry out their killings if it is minimal effort?
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Maybe it is to do with opportunism. Leave your wallet lying around and it might get stolen. If you keep your wallet in your pocket it doesn’t mean the would-be culprit would resort to robbing banks.
 
Thermal said:
...which brings it full circle. Unless you are saying psychopaths are inherently...what, lazy?...and will only carry out their killings if it is minimal effort?
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Not so much. Access to guns makes fulfilling extreme urges easier. It's why more suicides are completed by gun than by any other method. You have an impulse, you act on it. If you have to spend the time preparing, you have an opportunity to reconsider. Someone annoys you and you have a gun, you can shoot them. If you have to spend the time to construct a pipe bomb, you have an opportunity to reconsider.

ETA: Of course that doesn't address the elaborately planned shootings, but those constitute a minority even in America.
 
Thermal said:
<snip>]

As I was looking for a news article to link, I saw related stories: 10 shot at football game in Alabama, the Cali shootings two days prior...

I mean wtf? How many psychopaths do we have running around in the States?
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Assuming the generally accepted percentage of the population is accurate, that would be somewhere north of three and a quarter million.

Multiply by five if you want to add in sociopaths.

None of that explains why gun deaths are so much more common here, since that percentage is pretty much a constant for other countries as well.

One might almost think there was some other contributing factor.

:rolleyes:
 
quadraginta said:
Assuming the generally accepted percentage of the population is accurate, that would be somewhere north of three and a quarter million.

Multiply by five if you want to add in sociopaths.
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Sociopathy is generally considered to be the same thing as psychopathy, but it depends on who you ask. Some people use the word sociopathy instead of psychopathy, because there can be confusion between psychopathy and psychosis.
 
arthwollipot said:
Sociopathy is generally considered to be the same thing as psychopathy, but it depends on who you ask. Some people use the word sociopathy instead of psychopathy, because there can be confusion between psychopathy and psychosis.
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Yeah, until well into adulthood, I didn't really understand the distinction.

Then there's the word "psycho", like the title of that Hitchcock movie Psycho. Does it mean psychopath or psychotic or what? I guess the character in the movie, I'm not sure exactly how one would describe him, but psychopath is probably not the correct diagnosis. He was clearly delusional and perhaps suffered hallucinations, but I'm not sure the movie character is an accurate depiction of any particular kind of mental affliction.
 
arthwollipot said:
Sociopathy is generally considered to be the same thing as psychopathy, but it depends on who you ask. Some people use the word sociopathy instead of psychopathy, because there can be confusion between psychopathy and psychosis.
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One of my wife's colleagues, a practicing psychiatrist in NJ USA, says that he generally uses sociopath for the functional/assimilating type, and psychopath for the non-functional/GTFOOH variety.
 
Trebuchet said:
Video games. Just ask any right-winger, it's always video games. Nothing at all to do with guns, except that there aren't enough of them.
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Except when it was heavy metal music. Or roleplaying games. Or comic books. Or movies. Or pool halls. (Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool)
 
quadraginta said:
Assuming the generally accepted percentage of the population is accurate, that would be somewhere north of three and a quarter million.
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Not the number I was looking for. 'Twelve or so' helps me sleep better.

Multiply by five if you want to add in sociopaths.
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They don't bother me so much. I believe I am surrounded by them, and your number is low.

None of that explains why gun deaths are so much more common here, since that percentage is pretty much a constant for other countries as well.

One might almost think there was some other contributing factor.

:rolleyes:
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Use of guns is, I believe, self explanatory. It's the most efficient and available tool. Convenience and all. What struck me was the utter disregard for lives (and for possibility of getting away with it) that a revenge execution at a football game reflects.
 
Puppycow said:
Yeah, until well into adulthood, I didn't really understand the distinction.

Then there's the word "psycho", like the title of that Hitchcock movie Psycho. Does it mean psychopath or psychotic or what? I guess the character in the movie, I'm not sure exactly how one would describe him, but psychopath is probably not the correct diagnosis. He was clearly delusional and perhaps suffered hallucinations, but I'm not sure the movie character is an accurate depiction of any particular kind of mental affliction.
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I've never seen the movie, but as I understand it the psycho in question believes that he's talking to his mother, which is a hallucination and therefore psychosis is more or less accurate. But I'm hardly going to remote diagnose a movie character when I haven't seen the movie and am not even a mental health professional. :D
 
arthwollipot said:
I've never seen the movie, but as I understand it the psycho in question believes that he's talking to his mother, which is a hallucination and therefore psychosis is more or less accurate. But I'm hardly going to remote diagnose a movie character when I haven't seen the movie and am not even a mental health professional. :D
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I won't spoil it for you but Norman Bates' mother is not a hallucination. You are somewhat close but still wrong.

ETA: From my armchair I would diagnose him as a psychopath with psychosis. :D
 
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arthwollipot said:
I've never seen the movie, but as I understand it the psycho in question believes that he's talking to his mother, which is a hallucination and therefore psychosis is more or less accurate. But I'm hardly going to remote diagnose a movie character when I haven't seen the movie and am not even a mental health professional. :D
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Mother is not a hallucination. I will say no more.

William Parcher has faster fingers :D
 
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William Parcher said:
I won't spoil it for you but Norman Bate's mother is not a hallucination. You are somewhat close but still wrong.
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Steve said:
Mother is not a hallucination. I will say no more.
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Okay, no problem. I don't mind being wrong about a movie I haven't seen, but I am about as likely to watch it as I am to grow wings and fly to Saturn, so I don't mind being spoiled. Is it a dissociative identity?
 
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