Thursday Reads
Posted: January 13, 2011 Filed under: Barack Obama, Crime, morning reads, psychology, Second Amendment, U.S. Politics | Tags: delusions, Jerad Lee Loughner, misogyny, murders, paranoid schizophrenia, Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle 37 Comments
Good Morning!!
I’m going to focus this post on news and opinions relating to Jared Lee Loughner, the Arizona mass murderer. The news media is so focused on this story, it’s hard to find much else.
First, let me say that it has become abundantly clear that Loughner suffers from paranoid schizophrenia–a least I’m going to assume that unless someone comes up with a better explanation for his symptoms. I immediately suspected it when I first read descriptions of his behavior by people who knew him, but the more I read about him the more clear it becomes that Loughner suffers from this terrible illness.
Schizophrenia is characterized by a broad range of unusual behaviors that cause profound disruption in the lives of the patients suffering from the condition and in the lives of the people around them. Some common symptoms of schizophrenia are delusions, hallucinations (usually auditory), disorganized thought and speech, social withdrawal, and emotional unresponsiveness (flat affect).
Based on news reports, Loughner appears to be suffering from all of these symptoms. He was apparently experiencing delusions of persecution and delusions of control (e.g., his belief that the government was using mind control on him).
What Loughner did was driven by his delusions and his disorganized thought processes. Despite the repulsive campaign rhetoric used by tea party politicians like Sarah Palin and Sharron Angle, it really isn’t accurate to blame their words for Loughner’s crimes. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to shame politicians into speaking and behaving more civilly, but the real outrage is that this young man was able to buy a gun and ammunition. Loughner was a walking time bomb, and he lived in a state that allows people to buy guns easily and to carry concealed weapons without a permit!
Let’s condemn conservative politicians for helping to make guns far too easily available to troubled people and liberals for refusing to stand up to the gun nuts.
If you read this Wall Street Journal article, you’ll see examples of Loughner’s disordered thinking and communication. The WSJ writers found a collection of postings by Loughner to an on-line gaming forum. He talked about his inability to get a job and his failure with women, and sometimes his comments became bizarre and disturbing.
Look at these examples from the article:
On April 24, Mr. Loughner titled a new online thread: “Would you hit a Handy Cap Child/ Adult?” He wrote: “This is a very interesting question….There are mental retarded children. They’re possessing teachers that are typing for money. This will never stop….The drug addicts need to be weeded out to be more intelligent. The Principle of this is that them c— educators need to stop being pigs.”
Later that day, he posted a rant titled “Why Rape,” which said women in college enjoyed being raped. “There are Rape victims that are under the influence of a substance. The drinking is leading them to rape. The loneliness will bring you to depression. Being alone for a very long time will inevitably lead you to rape.”
[….]
On May 9 at 2:00 a.m., he asked: “Does anyone have aggression 24/7?” By noon, when others suggested he try smoking marijuana, he said: “No weed. No drugs. It’s not like I can’t see my brain.”
[….]
On June 3 at 12:14 a.m. Mr. Loughner described one confrontation with Mr. McGahee [his college math instructor], writing to his fellow gamers that he had asked the teacher: “Are you just getting a pay check for brainwashing?” as well as questioning if the class was a “scam” and asking, “can you tell me how to Deny math?” He wrote that the teacher told him it was a stupid question and he should “GET OUT OF MY CLASS!”
The next day, after he had to see a school counselor, he wrote: “Told her about brainwashing a child and how that can change the view of mathematics.”
This young man was extremely confused and delusional. It would be impossible for his parents not to have known that he was very ill. We may learn that they tried to get help for him; unfortunately it is not easy to get help for people with psychological disorders. People suffering from schizophrenia resist getting treatment–they don’t realize how sick they are. Furthermore, it is extremely difficult to force someone into treatment. Ironically, Arizona makes committing someone against their will easier than most other states, the state has also cut so much on mental health facilities and workers that services aren’t readily available.
Our mental health system is even more broken than the rest of our health care system. People who talk about “falling through the cracks” are clueless. Our mental health system is nothing but cracks.
More Loughner articles:
Mark Ames, author of Going Postal: Is the Giffords Shooting a New Kind of American Murder?
I studied countless rampage massacres for my book Going Postal, and this is the first instance I can think of in which the shooter—in this case, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner—carried out anything like a hybrid assassination-rampage: first, a planned, targeted assassination of a high-profile political figure, followed immediately by a seemingly indiscriminate shooting rampage. The first part of this hybrid assassination-rampage left a U.S. Congresswoman, Gabby Giffords, in critical condition with a serious head wound; the second part, the rampage, left six dead and another 13 wounded.
These two types of murders have little in common. In America, at least, the assassin is concerned about only one thing: taking out his target. While others may get shot in the confusion, political assassins never, to my knowledge, stick around after accomplishing their primary task just so they can keep murdering others indiscriminately.
[….]
In rampage shootings, on the other hand, media reports often describe the rampage murderer “shooting at random” before the bullet-in-the-head finale. But closer study of these shootings reveals that the attackers often have specific targets in mind—usually bullying supervisors or fellow workers. Sometimes, in the bloodiest cases, the shooter takes aim at the entire “company” or school, making everyone in it an intended target. In many of these cases, the shooters turn out to have been victims themselves of bullying, harassment, and social or financial ruin.
Judging from early reports, Loughner looks to be a pastiche of these two classic profiles.
Why psychiatrists can’t predict mass murderers
Let’s assume that we’ve identified a set of characteristics often exhibited by mass murderers. What does that buy us? It enables us to answer the question, “Given that someone is a mass murderer, what characteristics is he likely to exhibit?” That’s an interesting question, but it’s not the one we want to answer. Rather, the question we really want to answer is, “Given that someone exhibits this profile of characteristics, how likely is he to commit mass murder?” Answering this question is extremely difficult because the predictors are invariably far more common than the event we hope to predict, and mass murder is very rare. Although mass murderers often do exhibit bizarre behavior, most people who exhibit bizarre behavior do not commit mass murder.
Media reports about Jared Loughner, the alleged Tucson killer, illustrate this difficulty. His abnormal behavior, however unusual, is still far more common than the crimes of which he is accused.
Loughner pulled over hours before shooting
Hours before Saturday’s shooting, suspected gunman Jared Lee Loughner was stopped by an Arizona Game and Fish officer for running a red light.
Agency spokesman Jim Paxson confirmed Wednesday that an officer made the stop about 7:30 a.m. Saturday on an Interstate 10 access road several miles from the shopping center where congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 18 other people were gunned down.
Loughner, who was described by the officer as “very forthcoming,” and “very polite, very subdued,” was driving an older-model charcoal gray Chevrolet Nova, which has since been seen parked outside the Loughner family home.
Police Release Documents Detailing Contact With Ariz. Gunman Prior to Deadly Rampage
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department released reports on Wednesday detailing contacts with Arizona gunman Jared Loughner and his family prior to Saturday’s shooting — contacts that ranged from petty nuisance complaints to a drug arrest.
[….]
The reports detail all personal contact Pima County deputies had with Loughner beginning on Sept. 23, 2004, when he was the victim of a reported assault.
Loughner was later arrested as a juvenile for possession of alcohol on May 15, 2006, and on Sept. 10, 2007, he also received a citation for possession of drug paraphernalia, according to the police reports.
The police reports do not appear to indicate a violent history. Instead, they reflect a man seemingly prone to destructive tendencies.
Read more at the link.
Records show fear of Loughner, lack of mental health intervention
Pima Community College in Tucson has released records of its campus police contacts with student Jared Loughner, showing the increasing fear that he stirred in his classmates and teachers.
A thread running through the documents is the difficulty of police finding a context in which to intervene: Until they found a violation of the student code of conduct, or a state law, police officers wrote in the reports that they weren’t sure what else they could do, even when a fellow student said she thought Loughner had brought a knife to class.
The records show no indication that the college took steps to get Loughner any mental health counseling.
Loughner also seemed not to understand the seriousness of the fears. When police spoke with him, Loughner said his free speech rights were being violated, and seemed to have trouble understanding why he had been called out of class.
Here’s a really interesting article by a researcher on why some people act heroically in situations like the Arizona shootings.
Rohit Deshpande, a professor at Harvard Business School, has delved into the science of heroism to find out what causes someone to spring into action despite the danger to help or save someone else.
In his research, Deshpande focused on how hotel workers took extreme risks to protect guests during the deadly terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, in 2008.
After several desperate hours of explosions and gunfire, members of the kitchen staff locked arms and formed a cordon around guests as the attackers machine-gunned them down.
In another display of heroism, hotel operators stayed at their phones to call rooms with vital information.
[….]
He found heroism had nothing to do with age, gender or religion. It started with personality.
“It seems that they have a much more highly developed moral compass,” he said. “They have this instinct for doing something good for other people. We find this across a whole series of situations.
I’m going to end with an article by Joan Walsh of Salon on why Sarah Palin is too narcissistic and lacking in empathy to ever be elected president.
Good grief! Has Joan Walsh paid any attention to current President Barack Obama’s behavior or George W. Bush’s for that matter? Narcissism and lack of empathy have seemingly become de rigueur for holders of the office these days!
Sooooo…. What are you reading this morning?
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Thank you BB for this post…
Great article, BB – thanks for the links and comments about the psychology of Loughner. I’ve always been interested in the “why” of such deplorable acts – the mind and how it works fascinates me.
Me too.
HONK!
Somehow I find myself having sympathy for this young man who has spent his life living with such a “scrambled brain” that urged him to carry out this devastation.
We tend to ignore or dismiss those among us who suffer from these maladies that in many instances are beyond their control.
He needed help and didn’t get it. I feel sorry for him too. This didn’t need to happen. But until Americans get serious about mental health treatment it will happen again and again. Instead of cutting taxes for the rich, we should be funding programs for all Americans.
That’s what offended me the most about Palin’s response to the Arizona shootings. I understand why so many were offended by her inapt and ignorant “blood libel” reference, but what got to me was the utter moral bankruptcy of the Reagan quotation she chose to use: “We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”
The problem, of course, is that Loughner was horribly and violently schizophrenic, and yes, society–particularly its right wing–is to blame when schizophrenics not only go untreated for years but also are then allowed to purchase semiautomatics and ammo at the local Wall Mart. Apparently, the clerk at the Wall Mart didn’t even want to sell the him the ammo. But legally he had no choice in the matter. Apparently, while states are allowed to enact “conscience clauses” that give pharmacists the right to deny customers the morning-after pill, there can be no such clause for salespeople who don’t want to arm customers who clearly seem to pose a threat to themselves or others unless a background check establishes mental illness. For that, of course, would violate our most sacred amendment–the second one–the only one that most right-wingers know by heart so that they can misconstrue it at will.
Btw, the WSJ and subsequently lots of other sites misreported that a sales clerk at one Walmart did refuse to sell Loughner ammo, but Walmart later informed the Journal that that Loughner was not turned away from the first store, but left before completing the purchase. I wonder whether Walmart would have taken heat from NRA gun rights absolutists if its spokesperson had not made that clarification?
Would be interesting if some group with standing could sue Walmart for wrongful death like the so when bartenders give another drink to an obviously drunk person who drives and then kills.
Inky,
Excellent point about the conscience clauses!
Thx, BB! Btw, it’s nice to be conversating with you again, as Sam Mallone would say.
Glad to see you up and around. You sounded horrible yesterday.
I wonder though if his parents were in denial. He was “normal” for so many more years than he wasnt’. In middle school he was described as affable and in high school if he had symptoms they were mild enough that he could blend with other teens. He’s so young that it seems it might be likely that his symptoms might not be readily apparent particularly for people who might be more comfortable in denial then coping with the very real reality that their son would never know “normal” in the way that most people know “normal.” Parents aren’t fallible and sometimes having a personal connection can color your perception of things. You see what you want to see.
Anyway it’s a sad situation all around. The rhethoric from people like Palin is that this young man is personally responsible when the truth is actually WE ,as a society, are responsible. We allow people who are mentally unsound to have access to weapons. Their mental processes aren’t sound and their judgement is impaired and we don’t intercede to do everything to protect society and them from themselves. We facillitate. Then when it’s too late we put them on trial, and play pretend that WE had no part in what happened. The truth is this isn’t the first time a mentally ill person has killed someone with a gun. Yet still we shrug our shoulders and say “this was the work of a random madman” so therefore there was nothing we could do. It’s frustrating and sad to me because it seems we are always destined to use the all or nothing approach (outlaw guns or continue the status quo under the premise of 2nd amendment rights). Why is it that there can’t be a middle approach where we create a more rigorous screening process? It isn’t like there isn’t the means to profile people psychologically and there could be an appeal process for those that disagreed with findings. It just seems more sensible to me then annually accepting the idea that someone mentally unsound will invariably get a weapon and use it to kill.
I agree, Pat. The truth is it is extremely difficult for someone with a serious mental illness to “get help” for a variety of reasons. Lack of insurance coverage is one reason but so is the complex nature of diagnosis and treatment. There is no one magic pill to take away psychotic symptoms. Anti-psychotic meds can have very serious side-effects. They need to be prescribed amd closely monitored by a very skilled psychiatrist ( try to find one! ). Often the meds have to be changed or dosages altered. It can take years to get the proper treatment worked out. The side-effects alone can cause patients to go off their meds. I have witnessed the side-effects of such meds and it is hard to blame patients for not wanting to take them. More money needs to go into research and development of anti-psychotics with fewer side-effects.
I have sympathy for the parents of the shooter as well. We don’t yet know what they did or didn’t do to try to help their son. It is a nightmare of confusion, fear, and sadness having a loved one who is seriously mentally ill. Most people have no idea what to do about it and trying to find help adds to the nightmare. Social services for the mentally ill are sorely lacking in this country. I assume with budget cuts that situation will get even worse.
Well said
I agree with everything you wrote, Beata.
Yes Beata, nodding in agreement…
A WaPo article gives some detailed background about the family. http://tinyurl.com/4bynubg
As a Pima County employee, his mother would have had access to health care for the family unless she refused it. The County also has an employee assistance program.
http://www.pima.gov/hr/benefits.html
It seems to me that access in this case was not a major issue.
Salg,
Most health care plans provide very limited coverage for mental illness. In addition, as I pointed out in the post, people with schizophrenia tend to resist treatment, and it is difficult to commit people against their will. Although it’s easier in Arizona than in some other states, Arizona has made very deep cuts in mental health services. Also see Glenn’s comment. I’m guessing you’ve never tried to get help for a mentally ill family member. If you had, you would know it’s a nighmare experience.
Again, as I said in my post, the system is broken.
Wow, I just went outside for the first time since the storm. It looks like we could have gotten almost two feet. I just stayed inside yesterday with the flu. I guess I must be slightly better today. The guy just finally came to dig me out. He’s been working all night and he isn’t done yet!
We got 20 inches and the entrance to my driveway is “flanked” by pillars of snow. I have yet to clean off my car which is buried out in the driveway.
The local forecasts are suggesting another storm by Wednesday. Enough already!
Oh no! I have to start teaching next Wed. I just cleaned off my car while the guy was here to shovel me out. It was buried.
We got two feet.
And ugh.
After excuse after excuse in emails and phone calls, my plow guy just emailed me and said he’s not going to be able to come. With two feet of snow that’s now iced-over. And right after the snow ended I could’ve flagged down 20 different independent plowers that drove by while I shoveled out our mailbox and stuff, they’d have been glad for an extra $100. Worst part is, I had a feeling this fall that I should let this guy go and hire new plowers, but he’s always broke and a little off so I thought oh it’s just plowing give him the work. No good deed …
So I called my stand-by guys, who do our landscaping, and their truck axel broke yesterday in the middle of plowing their clients out.
And nothing out there is melting.
Guess I’ll get the shovel out again. Well it’s exercise.
Back to your regularly scheduled discussion.
Oh no, Zal. That’s terrible. I hope it won’t be too hard to do.
Thank you BB for bringing attention to this horrible mental illness. Its too bad we aren’t focusing and educating everyone on something that effects everyone. Take a look at the state’s mental health budget.
It would have been an opportunity to insist that resources are becoming more scarce and while we’re focusing on Obamacare or whatever you call it. The reality is that mental health assistance is the last priority and funding of it is inadequate at best. Difficult to diagnose, treat and recognize, awareness would help alot.
The budget for Arizona:
The Budget: Then and Now
•
Fiscal Year 2010
–
Over $127 million in Non-Title 19 funding to serve individuals
•
~$90 million was for individuals with serious mental illness (SMI)
•
Fiscal Year 2011
–
Reduced by >50%
–
$61 million available and targeted for:
•
Medication benefit for non-TXIX SMI ($40.2 million)
•
Crisis Services ($16.4 million)
•
Supported Housing for TXIX SMI ($5.3 million
http://www.azdhs.gov/bhs/updates/index.htm
Yep, their budget was reduced by over 50% for mental health Mr. President. Why no mention of that.
Thank you for all that information. That is incredibly sad and frankly just plain stupid.
In Arizona, the legislature and Jan Brewer have made the decision to withhold monies from those on the transplant registry which amount to about 1 million plus dollars, citing the need to “cut the budget”. And this is monies for those who will surely die as a result of that decision.
If they can withhold monies from transplant patients who are facing death as a result, there is no reason to suggest that mental health issues would top their priority list.
Though the legislature and Jan Brewer have been petioned and urged to make the monies available once more, they have resisted so far. She is sitting on 20 million dollars of TARP funding so the money is there. Some of it has been allocated to repairing a new roof at a major stadium in Arizona which pretty much sums up their version of life saving measures.
This from candidates who would force women to bear children they do not want and consider that effort “quality of life”. The hypocrisy that abounds within the GOP in this area of health and social issues knows no boundaries. Imagine needing a transplant that could save your life and being told that the governor and the legislature of your state has made the decision to put the funding elsewhere?
Neither can I.
Our govenor is a notorious definder of education and health programs. I remember an example of a Man with mental health issues after Katrina wandering the streets waving a knife. A large black man. The police just encircled him and eventually he was shot to death because one cop panicked and shot. Then more followed. Guy had a small knife. How threatened could you feel with that and in the presence of snipers? we’re short of bed. Short of doctors. Short of professional police. I think something like this is likely to happen here. You can’t get help even if you need it.
Gun control advocates are disappointed in Obama’s silence (More broken promises–what else is new?).
that Obama will have to leave the sidelines and join the fight for any of those bills to have even a chance of gaining traction. Indeed, they’re urging him to do just that.
exactly what are they smoking?
Hopium?
It is like his ‘support’ for the Public Option. In the end he was meeting with the GOP asking what he could do for them in making sure it never saw the light of day. Same with Gun Control and it will bring up that name…’CLINTON’. Yup, Big Dawg got it passed and brought community policing into the cities along with funding, and was working on the deficit and leaving a surplus.
Memories…
It seems to me until there is some act to punish, society, as it is set up now turns a blind eye to such people . We often hear of family who has begged for help for sometime before ….Once the person kills, however the whole edifice pops into gear to prosecute them. Punishment we understand better than prevention it seems
There have been so many mall shootings, but I’ll never forget Sylvia Seegrist, spree from 1985 because I was going to that mall that day, but decidfed not to….. but , I also remember it because it came out later Sylvia Seegrist had been there earlier trying to buy her tranquilizers . But she didn’t have proper id…so she came back with a Ruger semiautomatic .22 caliber rifle , and killed three people, one of them a two year old . At the time I said” I want to be in a country were it’s easier to get tranquilizers than assault rifles” and I still do.
I love the platitudes of “we need to care about each other” and “we need to open a dialogue”. Really?
We spent one entire year arguing over a healthcare bill that would have at the least offered to cover those with pre existing conditions. And we saw people take to the streets screaming, yelling, and carrying guns on their hips by way of protesting that attempt.
We saw a congressional GOP take a solemn oath to “just say no” anytime something came to the floor for a vote because their intent is to only allow the current occupant a one time term. The needs and wants of the public was banished to oblivion and replaced with this logic.
We watch one cable network devoted to a daily assault against anything even hinting of liberalism by claiming it is “evil” and about to destroy the US. One of their more popular pundits is allowed to bloviate daily with a blackboard in the background dreaming up “conspiracies theories” that he pulls from his @ss!
We watch a man’s house burn to the ground while the fire department stands by because he failed to pay his $75.00 fee for the service and found voices out there who saw nothing wrong with what happened.
We listen to elected officials brand the unemployed as “lazy”.
We hear a finding from the “Catfood Commission” that the retired are “living off the tit of government” and call for more measures to take away what little they have.
We watched in dismay in December as a group of lawmakers stood firm in blocking any number of much needed bills to ease the suffering of those in need by refusing to allow any votes until the billionaire class got theirs.
Who is it we must have a dialogue with? The corporate shills parading around as lawmakers whose very existence depends upon holding fast to those treasured seats in congress and have already signaled just who they “work” for?
We “care” about one another? Not at all if what I have been witnessing is being offered as proof.
DAK,
Check this out:
Thanks for this, BB. I feel sorrow for the victims, and I feel sorrow for Loughner and his family as well.
I know what it’s like to live with someone who is mentally ill. It’s very isolating, even when one tries to avoid that. People stop, they stare, they whisper. Children giggle and point and spit at you. Frankly, living in a suburb when we were young was h*ll, h*ll for me and my brother, h*ll for my parents. When we escaped, we escaped to the country and never went back. I’ll never live in a suburb, pasty white sameness in unending rows of judgemental faux superiority, I’d die first. I’ve lived in slums in Philly and I’d go back to the slums first.
I can’t imagine having a ‘normal’ son who deteriorates before my eyes. When exactly does the parent make the horrible decision that the son needs more than superficial ‘help’? How does the parent find this help? I mean, my sister has been mentally ill since she was born, she and my family are in the system, and we still have a heck of a time negotiating and navigating. And oftentimes, we struggle for help and receive nothing. I don’t expect charity, I don’t want handouts for my sister. But if my taxes have to pay for roads I will never use, for schools for children I will never have, for buses, and bridges, and police and fire, for signs and law makers and city sewers I will never use, well then, I think a little bit of that tax money can go to pay for hospice help, homes for the mentally ill, treatment and yes, straight jackets and guards if that is called for.
I don’t know if it’s all right for me to mention this here, but a note was found written by Loughner shortly before the assassination attempt which said “Die, bitch.” Speaks volumes of where his mind was.
I think by the time that was written there wasn’t much higher thought that wasn’t garbled left in his mind.