A gunman opened fire at a synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pa., killing multiple people and injuring several others, including three police officers. Follow the live blog below for updates.

http://www.yahoo.com/news/live-updates-shooting-pittsburgh-synagogue-153125806.html


schools, churches, grocery stores? What is this country becoming, seriously, why do we have so many people with no conscious but to kill STRANGERS indiscriminately like this? what is next, hospitals?

smh

at least it is another one taken alive to face justice. I fear we are moving toward more and more people blindly supporting a police state where everyone is walking around with guns for their own 'safety', and everyplace being 'guarded' like a common prison.

we have open carry here , most people dont even know about it
<shrug>

I think we're really just in a mental health crisis with the general public just being in denial about it.

First of all, behavioral science has progressed dramatically over the past 20 years.

Secondly, the mental health community was essentially dismantled during the 1980s. We went from 600 publicly funded institutions heavily involved in research and implementation to only 8 nationwide. That alone set the mental health community back about 20 years.

The 1980s were also when we began seeing a rise in public shootings and bombings. Coincidence?

Not really. Over 70% of shooters since then have either previously been in treatment for or had been documented as showing signs of either major depression or schizophrenia. That's a very serious red flag that we consistently overlook.

Unfortunately, because of previously poor treatment practices -- combined with the rise in acceptance of conspiracy theories and political/economic disillusionment -- there is now very heavy bias and resistance against the psychiatric field as a whole.

So I think we really need to rebuild people's faith in mental health. Until then, too many are going to refuse to seek help, staying in denial, and believing the problem is everyone else.

I question the whole issue of mental health because it is such an inexact science to begin with, with no tangible measurable criteria in many cases.

I wonder with the APA, who often change their own definitions of mental illness, if they are considering only those who are 'diagnosed' as having mental illness, and not considering the possibility of all those who simply never sought official medical help or had an official diagnosis.

for me, I do think there is something mentally or spiritually ill in persons able to kill indiscriminately or who are in environments where indiscriminate killing is encouraged or justified. It is something I always consider when reading the narratives about shooters, whether they be 'thugs' in impoverished communities or 'mentally ill' kids and adults taking out their school, or neighbors or families.

It feels like the only difference is the level of official care that was previously given to these people. Those who were able to be seen given an official diagnosis of 'ill', and those who never do just seen as run of the mill lacking in character.

Whichever the case though, there is serious spiritual illness happening where people are disconnecting from the value of other human life.

that's why I want to protect myself..i own guns because of those idiots

Klc, you realize that public (aka mass) shootings account for an even **smaller** percentage of all gun violence in this country?

If you look up the statistics, you'll find that it falls well within any considerable margin for error.

What you quoted simply says that the vast majority of people with mental illness are not a threat to the public.

What it doesn't say is that it only takes 1% of that 3% (i.e., .03% of all mentally ill) to perform 0.005% of all violent crimes, which happens to fall much more in line with where mass shootings rank as a percentage of violent crimes.

If I had the desktop computer that I still have in storage, I could pull up the specific numbers because they are saved on that hard drive.

Basket case, or not...

Cap'n Loony Tunes earned a dance with
the reaper in a prison execution chamber.