The most recent hubbub this weekend revolves around the mass shooting in Arizona: 3 dead, 14 wounded, and a psychologically disturbed individual was taken into custody. The victims of this tragedy, their families, and the family of the shooter are in our prayers. I've been in a self-induced media/internet seclusion for the past 48 hours, so the extent of my information until today came from 3rd-hand news from Gal via a phone conversation with her mother. All I knew was that somebody with a gun went postal and shot a congress woman. Boy, I should have stayed in seclusion for the well-being of my blood pressure.
Every article I have read (I won't link to them, all it takes is a quick Google search) had comment sections in which people were extolling the political leanings of the sick individual and "How _insert political pundit/talkinghead/media outlet here_ caused him to go batsh!t crazy and fulfill his blood lust on helpless victims". There was even some wrinkled rag of a newspaper out of Britain that had a whole piece about the subject.
I'm going to take a moment to selectively alter a Morbo quote: Psychosis does not work that way!
If someone becomes mentally ill, their thought patterns cease to work properly. In their mind, cause and effect are no longer on speaking terms, rationality has been diluted with paranoia, and they have become a lonely stranger within their own skin. Media has the same amount of influence on them that a cloud of mayflies has on an Abrams main battle tank running at full throttle. They are not trying to find truth in what reality is presented to them, they are set on finding some way for reality to conform to what they want to believe. It's like trying to determine what a person looks like based on a reflection in a house of mirrors. The more you try to move around and make the image coalesce, the worse your perception gets.
Case in point: One night I was working at our local hospital and got called to the ER to draw on a patient who was suffering a psychological break. Phlebotomists draw blood. Most people consider us a necessary nuisance who comes along, pricks them, leaves, and is soon forgotten; like a mosquito you don't slap (usually). This patient was totally different. He was convinced that They were after him, the music from his heavy metal band was filled with evil messages, and that everyone was bent on causing him harm*. First and foremost of all of this was his belief that his faith (Jehovah's Witness) precluded him from having his blood drawn. He was convinced that his ability to spend eternity in paradise was on the line if his blood was removed from his body for testing. Long story short, he eventually agreed to one tube being drawn (a syringe is a tube, right?) which allowed me to get enough blood to not have to bother with him again while he was at the hospital. (For the record, J's Witnesses have issues with blood transfussion, not blood draws).
The point is, this patient was having major psychological issues. Judging from what commenters' posted (and some media outlets espoused), the blame for this guy's issues lay in his religion. The religion told him to do _____, so he takes it to the extreme and ends up as a threat to himself and the public at large. In reality, this guy would have latched on to whatever helped make sense of his addled brain. It could have been political, religious, social, philosophical, or something entirely made up by the individual. The end result would have been the same: both the patient and the individual in the recent shooting had a break with reality. No single choice on their part made the event more or less likely to occur. It would make as much sense to blame their actions on the clothes they were wearing when the event occurred.
-Guy
* ie, Buffalo Springfield: Paranoia strikes deep/into your life it will creep/it starts when you're always afraid/step out of line, the men come and take you away.
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