Shooting inside Colorado movie theater during Batman premier
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There is no such thing as a "bad person". It is all in the upbringing. If we see someone that does something that does not compute with our beliefs, we would call them "bad".
Hopefully you understand what I am trying to say.. This is clearly my opinion!
Can't always say that upbringing is the reason (that would shift blame away to the family). Sometimes it is simply the person who did it who is at fault and speculation towards the family is unneeded.
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- Blaze_409
He can go ahead and with his lawyer and plead insanity or some psychological disorder but that's not going to help him anyway. People rarely win those cases and I don't think he could win it either.
Unless they find evidence that he was taking experimental drugs from the neuro lab he can't win this.
Unless they find evidence that he was taking experimental drugs from the neuro lab he can't win this.
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There is no such thing as a "bad person". It is all in the upbringing. If we see someone that does something that does not compute with our beliefs, we would call them "bad".
Hopefully you understand what I am trying to say.
No, there are people that are just bad. Look up "sociopath" and "psychopath," along with other anti-social personality disorders. There are people that simply do not have any empathy or regard for others due to how their emotions work.
Your attitude is kind of what I hate with modern society, which is try to blame someone besides the person immediately responsible for their actions.
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Also who are we as a society to decide that human nature is inherently good and that odd behavior is sociopathic, sadistic, psychopathic. We have just given names to things. All we can really do Is note changes on the brains of serial killers etc but the only reason this is considered abnormal is because we have such a biased perception of what a human being is. Just read the 10 commandments as a start. Sure it's a wonderfully thing that the majority are not killers but does that mean thats what normal is?
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Just an opinion. We are all entitled to an opinion.
But I see your point, for people like Hitler, he is bad
No, by your logic, his parents should be responsible for the mass murders he committed. We should petition all history textbook companies and have them change it to say that Hitler was a good person, but his parents had raised him wrong.
Dotini
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http://naturalsociety.com/batman-shooter-james-holmes-on-pharmaceutical-drugs/#ixzz21UW2S6g2
Apparently, the Big Pharma industry shares in the blame for this and other atrocities.
Respectfully submitted,
Steve
Apparently, the Big Pharma industry shares in the blame for this and other atrocities.
Respectfully submitted,
Steve
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Just an opinion. We are all entitled to an opinion.
But I see your point, for people like Hitler, he is bad
Yes, everyone can have an opinion, but opinions can be built on flawed information and assumptions, which is what I feel you've done.
Why can't we just blame the guy? Why must we point fingers towards 3rd parties?
dylansan
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It's not just parents that have an influence on their child. It's everything, every other experience, even just random chance.
Sure, parenting probably has the most noticeable effect, but good parenting does not guarantee the child will have a perfectly healthy and understanding mind.
We don't need to blame Hitler's parents, or anybody, just recognize that unfortunate circumstances led to him becoming who he was, and that what he did was wrong. And that it's still perfectly reasonable to hold him accountable for what he did, just to stop him from doing it again.
Sure, parenting probably has the most noticeable effect, but good parenting does not guarantee the child will have a perfectly healthy and understanding mind.
We don't need to blame Hitler's parents, or anybody, just recognize that unfortunate circumstances led to him becoming who he was, and that what he did was wrong. And that it's still perfectly reasonable to hold him accountable for what he did, just to stop him from doing it again.
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I believe that we are all the product of every moment in our lives up until this one.
Fact is NONE of us will actually know what is going on in Holmes' head, we'll only absorb what we're spoon-fed by the media.
Should he be punished, yep, totally, we have to operate within the confines of our society or pay the price. Will GTP amateur psychology or judgement actually offer any insight or real reason, no, so I don't see why we're all getting so bent out of shape about it.
Fact is NONE of us will actually know what is going on in Holmes' head, we'll only absorb what we're spoon-fed by the media.
Should he be punished, yep, totally, we have to operate within the confines of our society or pay the price. Will GTP amateur psychology or judgement actually offer any insight or real reason, no, so I don't see why we're all getting so bent out of shape about it.
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Azuremen
Agree with you! Some people are trying to blame everyone, the family, the society. Oh the poor boy who had difficult life, it's not his fault, the society is responsible if he shot 12 people. Yeah right! Always easier to put fault on someone else than take the responsability.
My friend had a very difficult life. When she was young, her parents were "unable" to raise her so she moved from family to family, was raped at 10 by an uncle, took drugs when teenager, she was looking forward a pretty bad future. But you what? Now she's 32 years old and she is a successful lawyer, nice kids and good husband. She didn't become a killer.
Whatever hard times we have to go through, the human have the ability to change. We have the choice to stay in the wrong way or to become better.
This guy made the choice of killing. I'm not buyin any arguments bringing the fault on society, his parents or firearms.
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And she was as affected by environment as everyone else. Everyone, sane or not, strong willed or weak is influenced by their environment. No one is trying to pass the blame or let Holmes go scott free. Is the guy sane? Maybe. Does his sanity have any bearing on whether he is dangerous not? No, he is dangerous. Should he be free to do as he wants after doing what he did? No. Could finding the cause behind his decision to kill innocent people for no apparent reason be helpful? I think so. It would do a lot more good than torturing him or blindly wishing for him to be punished in the worst possible way in my opinion.
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- themartlab
I don't really think we can prevent this type of agression. When someone is bullied since years, well yes we can do things to help him, to prevent the day he will say it's enough and they're going to pay.
Wackos like Holmes are as imprevisible as terrorism. They build up a plan, and put it to execution. Anyone can buy a rifle, go in a shopping mall and start shooting. It's imprevisible like this. There's a good chance we won't know why he did this. My guess is he's going to plea insanity or criminaly irresponsible. Maybe there's no reason, he just wanted to do it.
Wackos like Holmes are as imprevisible as terrorism. They build up a plan, and put it to execution. Anyone can buy a rifle, go in a shopping mall and start shooting. It's imprevisible like this. There's a good chance we won't know why he did this. My guess is he's going to plea insanity or criminaly irresponsible. Maybe there's no reason, he just wanted to do it.
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Might be the last bit. Chances are he idolized the Joker and just did it "for fun." That's my guess.
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I think deserve is the wrong word here. Because I say no he does not deserve any criminal defense upon initial investigation.
Of course all I can say is he has the right to one. but only that.
Do you think Jansen Young or any of the other women who lost there significant others that knight give two :censored:s about whether he gets a defense or not. Whether he is mentally ill? Will they visit Holmes in a mental asylum...Hell & No. I personally dont care whether he gets a defense. And I will say he doesn't deserve one regardless of his psychological state. I was not even there. I cannot even begin to fathom the pain and suffering of the innocent victims in that theater. There are people who want to kill thi man in the same way that Harvey Lee Oswald was killed for assasinating JFK.
Of course all I can say is he has the right to one. but only that.
Do you think Jansen Young or any of the other women who lost there significant others that knight give two :censored:s about whether he gets a defense or not. Whether he is mentally ill? Will they visit Holmes in a mental asylum...Hell & No. I personally dont care whether he gets a defense. And I will say he doesn't deserve one regardless of his psychological state. I was not even there. I cannot even begin to fathom the pain and suffering of the innocent victims in that theater. There are people who want to kill thi man in the same way that Harvey Lee Oswald was killed for assasinating JFK.
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There is no such thing as a "bad person". It is all in the upbringing. If we see someone that does something that does not compute with our beliefs, we would call them "bad".
Hopefully you understand what I am trying to say.
I'd like to correct this by saying... go read my post from a few pages back. Sometimes it's not a matter of belief. Some people just don't possess the same social filters we do, or sometimes never develop them.
If a person is raised by axe murderers or genocidal racists, they may become the same.
If a person isn't raised in such a way, and they become axe murderers, then you start to look at other, internal biological factors.
There are bad people. Period. Taking a human life for reasons other than self-defense or the direct defense of others is bad. If you think that part is all about "belief", then go ahead down to Darfur and stand in front of a guerilla squad and have your head shot off.
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The correct thing to say is most people don't see themselves as bad, but others are cognizant of the reasons others call them "bad" but simply choose to ignore those reasons.
And yet, that's not justice. Justice is a fair trial and a conviction.
Extrajudicial execution is a very, very slippery slope. It's the ability to follow laws and forms that mark us as "normal" humans. The desire to kill another for any reason without following those social forms is dangerous. Once you've become accustomed to killing "bad guys", that changes you. Makes you value human life itself less. At that point, whoever does the deed is able to kill other people for less provocation.
Why do you think executions follow such complex rituals? It's so that the people performing the executions can go to sleep at night. So they can pretend that it wasn't their gun that fired the killing bullet. Or that they personally administered the killing dose of chemicals... it was a machine that did it. If you allow the executioner to discard their human empathy, then you are creating another psychopath.
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Of course. Just like the alcohol companies are partially at fault when someone kills someone else drunk driving. And the automobile companies. And the bar the driver was at before. And, hell, the victim is too; since if he wasn't there he wouldn't have gotten killed.
Stupid victim. What was he thinking.
After reading some of the stuff posted here about the killer motivations, I found it completely wrong to consider that an external party or mental disorder took part on this, by logical reason one can consider that he was emulating a psychopath, and as such he will be look as psychopath, which seems to be the case.
>The guy developed and completed his studies in neuroscience, that's enough prof that shows that the guy's cognitives capacities were competent enough to develop in such studies.
>The guy was a Neuroscience student, therefore he obviously knew about mental illnesses and their outcomes, apart from that he also took ethics courses back in college, so it's not something that might slip by.
>It was planned, he had to arrange a set of tools and methods, demonstrating cognition and not an impulsive behaviour.
>Media is now pointing Vicodin as the drug he was taking to execute the crimes, but such drug is a painkiller with sedative effects(granted, it also causes odd thinking), which is not something that a neuroscience student would take for a killing spree.
>He seemed to be surrounded by experts, which defeats the whole point of being in a constant alternated mind status.
IMO people here don't have an idea how how a mental illness works, and how an alternated state of mind works. He was emulating a psychopath, not being one, which is by itself dangerous, as he can commit crimes of the same nature again if he continues to emulate his role model's behaviour.
There are no fingers to be pointed out at external conditions or situations, he used his cognition and he was aware of what he was doing because he planned it. It wasn't impulsive behaviour, it wasn't when he started to stockpile ammo since 2 months before the attack , it wasn't when he used a gas bomb to start the attack, it wasn't when he set the explosives at his apartment(by wiring and setting up IEDs), and it wasn't when he decided to do it on the screening day, when most people would attend to the premier of film and thus cause the greatest amount of victims possible to his related "theme".
Pointing fingers and supporting mental illnesses causes is just showing disrespect to victims of such attack.
>The guy developed and completed his studies in neuroscience, that's enough prof that shows that the guy's cognitives capacities were competent enough to develop in such studies.
>The guy was a Neuroscience student, therefore he obviously knew about mental illnesses and their outcomes, apart from that he also took ethics courses back in college, so it's not something that might slip by.
>It was planned, he had to arrange a set of tools and methods, demonstrating cognition and not an impulsive behaviour.
>Media is now pointing Vicodin as the drug he was taking to execute the crimes, but such drug is a painkiller with sedative effects(granted, it also causes odd thinking), which is not something that a neuroscience student would take for a killing spree.
>He seemed to be surrounded by experts, which defeats the whole point of being in a constant alternated mind status.
IMO people here don't have an idea how how a mental illness works, and how an alternated state of mind works. He was emulating a psychopath, not being one, which is by itself dangerous, as he can commit crimes of the same nature again if he continues to emulate his role model's behaviour.
There are no fingers to be pointed out at external conditions or situations, he used his cognition and he was aware of what he was doing because he planned it. It wasn't impulsive behaviour, it wasn't when he started to stockpile ammo since 2 months before the attack , it wasn't when he used a gas bomb to start the attack, it wasn't when he set the explosives at his apartment(by wiring and setting up IEDs), and it wasn't when he decided to do it on the screening day, when most people would attend to the premier of film and thus cause the greatest amount of victims possible to his related "theme".
Pointing fingers and supporting mental illnesses causes is just showing disrespect to victims of such attack.
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Akira AC
Totally agree. I don't understand how people could honestly be finding excuses for this guy. I don't give a crap what his upbringing was, he killed innocent people and tried to kill many more than he did. He is responsible for that and solely him!
The guy got into a program so competitive that only 5 per year get in out of 1000s of applicants that are the brightest and best of their respective schools from around the glove (on CNN last night). Your going to try and tell me he had a bad upbringing or is was external factors that made him do it? Get a 🤬 grip.
He was afforded every opportunity in life to do great things and be a productive member of society and this is what he chose. He deserves to rot in that prison cell for life for what he did and deserves 0 sympathy and excuses for his actions.
To people saying it's the environment that shapes who people will become your wrong. You have a brain that is used to make conscious decisions on your own. Your environment influences you, it's what actions you take with those influences that defines who you are. He decided to become a mass murderer and for that reason alone he deserves the worst the law can throw at him.
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There is a difference between a mental disorder, such as schizophrenia, and conditions that impair cognitive development, such as autism. As I said, intellignece does not make someone immune to mental illness.
You underestimate the power of mental illness. Just because he studied neuroscience - has it even been confirmed which field he was studying - and took an ethics course does not mean that a mental illness could not take hold.
Take, for example, paranoid schizophrenia. It can make a person think, act and behave in irrational ways. Therefore, I would not expect that person to be able to respond rationally to it. Most paranoid schizophrenics don't wake up one day and suddenly realise "I have paranoid schizophrenia". They are usually diagnosed by someone else, which can be difficult, as a paranoid schizophrenic may hear voices telling them that those around them are lying and cannot be trusted.
I'm not saying Holmes is a paranoid schizophrenic - I'm just trying to highlight that prior knowledge of mental illness is not some magic bullet that will stop said illness from taking hold in someone's mind. For example, I have a kid in my class with bipolar disorder. I know what to look for in his behaviour that might suggest his mood is susceptible to changing, but that doesn't mean that I myself am suddenly immune from bipolar disorder myself.
Again, planning does not imply guilt. If he opened fire on the audience because the voices in his head told him to, and instructed him how to carry out the attack, the fact that it was planned does not disprove a mental illness.
Are we doing trials by media, now? At the time of the attack, the media variously reported that Holmes was dressed as Bane from the films, that the attack specifically targeted one person in the audience and Holmes used a massacre to hide his intended crime, and that he attacked the cinema specifically because he believed Christopher Nolan's Batman films to be political indoctrination. Even the reports that he identified himself as the Joker have been questioned. If they can get those details wrong, how can the media suddenly be pitch-perfect in their assessment of Holmes given that police have said it could take months for them to establish a motive for the attack?
A very strange statement to make, considering that you have demonstrated a lack of knowledge on the subject. Observe:
You have assumed that all mental illnesses impair cognition and are exclusively characterised by impulsive behaviour. Both of these statements are patently untrue.
No, it's not. If anything, rushing to judgement of Holmes is disrespectful. If he does have a mental illness, he cannot and should not be treated as someone who was sane at the time of the attacks. He will still be locked away for the rest of his natural life, kept in an institution as he is a danger to society. To lock him away in a maximum security prison and offer no treatment for his condition - assuming he has one - would be cruel and inhumane.
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The fact that Holmes knowingly and with forethought took mind-altering drugs indicates guilt of something, but the extent has to be assessed.
Did he take the drugs simply for the experience?
Did he take the drugs because he'd developed an addiction to them?
Did he take the drugs specifically to allow himself to commit this crime? To loosen his inhibitions?
Did he take the drugs because of some underlying psychological problem?
Did he take them in anticipation for using this "altered mental state" as part of his defense?
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Locking him away might be cruel, but it protects the rest of society from him, whether mental illness or personal decision caused him to do what he did. The death penalty comes into play if it can be shown that there was no pre-existent condition at the time he started taking the drugs and stockpiling the weapons.
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I'd wonder how "looking for causes" shows disrespect to the victims? Analyzing the case as a whole helps us all to understand the many different factors that led to this massacre, and to try to prevent it from happening again. My only beef with the arguments of some people is the idea that the shooter "must not have had his full faculties" or "had no free will". At some point, you have to stop treating a person as a mess of symptoms and start treating them as a person.
Did he take the drugs simply for the experience?
Did he take the drugs because he'd developed an addiction to them?
Did he take the drugs specifically to allow himself to commit this crime? To loosen his inhibitions?
Did he take the drugs because of some underlying psychological problem?
Did he take them in anticipation for using this "altered mental state" as part of his defense?
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Locking him away might be cruel, but it protects the rest of society from him, whether mental illness or personal decision caused him to do what he did. The death penalty comes into play if it can be shown that there was no pre-existent condition at the time he started taking the drugs and stockpiling the weapons.
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I'd wonder how "looking for causes" shows disrespect to the victims? Analyzing the case as a whole helps us all to understand the many different factors that led to this massacre, and to try to prevent it from happening again. My only beef with the arguments of some people is the idea that the shooter "must not have had his full faculties" or "had no free will". At some point, you have to stop treating a person as a mess of symptoms and start treating them as a person.
dylansan
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Nobody's pointing fingers at anyone. The point is that a brain develops based entirely on every interaction it has with the environment, including but not limited to genetics, parenting, teachers, or a butterfly flapping it's wings miles away. Every effect has a cause; the decisions you make are caused by every single thing that happened in the past. Every thought you have was caused by the prior interactions which made your brain the way it is. There is no free will, as the decisions you make are not your choice but simply the result of the laws of physics playing out in your brain. It does not mean we get to blame everything else for this crime, it means you can't blame anything. It means blame is a stupid concept.
You can still remove him from society anyway, not because he is to blame, but because he is unfit for society and doesn't comprehend rights. This is not his or anyone's fault. It just is.
It doesn't matter if it was impulsive or planned for ages, he made the decision but he didn't actually have a choice.
Again with this. Nobody's saying what he did wasn't wrong. Nobody's saying this guy is a good person who deserves respect. Nobody's saying it wasn't a tragedy. Nobody's saying he shouldn't be removed from society. And nobody's trying to blame anyone else for it, especially not the victims. Where is the disrespect?
As should be clear by now, intelligent does not mean mentally stable, nor does it mean respectful of rights, nor does it mean good person. All it means is he knew what rights are and knew people thought they were important, not that he thought they were important.
Wrong.
This is the attitude I'm trying to remove. What is this nonsense about "deserves"? How exactly do you determine what someone deserves, exactly? Human rights only tell you what is allowed, not what should be done. The only way I can imagine determining what someone deserves is through emotion. And emotion is not a valid way to determine things like this.
Every effect has a cause. If the environment doesn't shape a person what does?
You act like these influences are just passing thoughts that you can choose to ignore if you want. Influences change the entire structure of your brain, without exception. Thinking about something alters the pathways and change how you think from then on. That's what thinking is. You can't consciously choose to rewire your brain, you only do what your brain decides you do, based on how it's already wired.
He didn't decide to become a mass murderer, he just became one. If not, then give a possible reason he decided to become a mass murderer that wasn't caused by the environment.
Wiegert
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I don't see any point in looking for excuses for his actions. Even though he may have been taking prescription drugs prior to the incident, that most likely had little to do with the fact that he was planning this attack for months already, and that he most likely knew fore well what his actions would bring. Just my thoughts on the matter.
And you're totally not doing just that right now? What with you constantly saying that mental illness played a part in this as if it actually did. Fact of the matter is, non of us can make that call until it's proven.
And you're totally not doing just that right now? What with you constantly saying that mental illness played a part in this as if it actually did. Fact of the matter is, non of us can make that call until it's proven.
dylansan
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What is your definition of mental illness? As far as I'm concerned any person that doesn't respect human rights has what could be considered a mental illness, even if you don't call it that. You could just say he's mentally abnormal, or something. But whether it's technically a mental illness or not is unimportant.
