We often use mental illness as an indicator, something to separate perpetrators of horrendous acts from the rest of us. Certainly you can argue, "how can someone who is mentally healthy do something like a Dylan Roof, etc...." It would be a fairly reasonable argument too, but with it, you actually stigmatize the vast majority of a small segment of society, people with diagnosed mental illness. People with Bipolar disorder, Schizophrenia, and the various other psychiatric disorders are certainly capable of violence, and they can be scary when symptomatic. The problem is that all available research shows people who are "mentally ill" are not out there rampaging and are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. Still, when something like the shooting in Buffalo occurs there is inevitable a discussion of "mental illness".
I have not been following the story enough to know whether the shooter had a history of psychiatric disturbance, it could well be he did, but I would say, even as an owner of firearms myself, that the access to firearms and the "culture" of firearms and the culture of White Supremacy, AND the culture of redemptive violence that is rampant in the United States facilitated this shooting more than a psychiatric illness. There are a great deal of angry young white men who have been promised power but then alienated from community and told that the cause of their problems are people of color, or women, or anything except the Capitalist structure which reduces them to cogs and consumers.
You can almost to a person, see that there were some problems at home, maybe not doing very well in school, then a dive down the rabbit hole online, into White supremacist culture, radicalization, planning, then movement to carry out a spectacle to prove that the person matters, a warning to others about ... whatever the White Supremacists, Trump, or whoever else pointed them toward (usually Black people or women) that is ruining society. Certainly people who are already prone to delusional thought processes will likely buy into those themes more readily, but the scary thing, and why we tend to "separate" people with labels of "mental illness", is that it can happen to any of us given the right circumstances.
Like I alluded to earlier, I have been around firearms most of my life, but I also had a stable family, did well in school, have a good career, a loving spouse, a wonderful family, and a foundation of service to others, respect for difference, and a burning desire to protect the vulnerable in our society. I was always taught that a firearm was a potentially deadly tool and to treat them with the proper amount of understanding of what they can do if used negligently or maliciously. It isn't a "totem" of power, a status symbol, a maker of manhood, or any of the other toxic things that "gun culture" tends to ascribe it. It is a tool, and again, a potentially deadly tool that the owner ABSOLUTELY HAS TO think about at all times, but many do not. Many also help to propagate this toxic "culture" where guns equal power, and sexy women posing with guns, is cool, and you post pictures of your guns decked out in all the bells and whistles, and all the other weird stuff that many gun owners do to make is "cool".
I digress. I think we need to look at every aspect that facilitates these shootings, why they are so prevalent here in the US. My warning is merely that there are other factors that are definitely associated with mental well being but that we really need to think about less as "Mental Illness" than systemic factors which lead some people to commit acts of violence. You can treat (to some extent) psychiatric disorders with medication and therapy, but the reality is that we need to be working on dealing with the messages that are constantly pushed as part of our society, to people about violence, guns, racism, etc... that lead to these shootings.
= new reply since forum marked as read
