Shooting inside Colorado movie theater during Batman premier

[niky]

PM says... "If he has a mental illness". He's not saying "He definitely does."

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RE: respect for human life. As I've already said, certain cultures, backgrounds and orientations allow people to take life without compunction. Not due to mental illness, but simply by making that person see other people as non-humans.

A born-and-bred racist is not mentally ill. A soldier is not mentally ill. They've merely been taught that people of a different color, tribe or nationality are not human and do not deserve the respect we afford to other humans. This is why Guantanamo Bay happened. Once you've trained soldiers to see the enemy as animals, they treat them as such.

You cannot keep insisting that a disrespect for human rights automatically means mental illness. Because it doesn't. There is a big difference between a serial killer who sees all people as sheep for the slaughter (because he physically cannot see them any other way), and a person who has been trained to see a certain set of people as undeserving of rights.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

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.

No, I'm not doing that at all. I'm not saying that Holmes has a mental illness that drove him to commit the massacre. I'm simply trying to highlight that if he has a mental illness, it needs to be considered. It doesn't exonerate him by any means, but with Colorado being a death penalty state, it can be considered a mitigating factor that would save him from the needle.

 

[Tornado]

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.

I have to say if you think by very act of committing a crime related to human rights that the criminal has a mental illness, than your attempts to use the term are essentially meaningless.

 

[dylansan]

Why is that?

 

[Akira AC]

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.

Basic definition of schizophrenia, by Wikipedia.
Further explanation about schizophrenia, by human biologist Robert Sapolsky.

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.

Schizophrenia impairs ability to reason as it affects cognitive thinking once brain degeneration is reached at certain stage(remind you that schizophrenia presents similarities with degenerative illnesses), he could not have planned out the attacks as they required logical trends of reason that is already impaired by the time he "starts to hear voices" (i.e. auditory hallucinations). Besides autism is a complete different mental illness, which has nothing to do with this.

Schizophrenia's basic symptoms also present the impairment of brain function, which are required to undergo cognitive demanding tasks (such as studding and getting high grades, as the suspect shows). Therefore this kind of mental illness doesn't apply to this case.

You have assumed that all mental illnesses impair cognition and are exclusively characterised by impulsive behaviour. Both of these statements are patently untrue.

It's true for the mental illnesses presented here. If there are other factors that are involved in this case (which are mostly personality disorders produced by PTSD and other factors) is not a biological mental illness, just a psychological disorders that might have develop from such conditions.

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.

What is your point? Mental illnesses are well know for being product of biological abnormalities in the brain (chemical abnormalities, arguable genetic conditions and brain defects), personalities disorders however are product of nurturing and childhood development.

Besides, you imply that he should be excluded from any kind of responsibility, and that's absolutely not true as he carried out the attack, not the illness(even if it was his motivation, his background demonstrates that he would have had the cognitive capacity to avoid such a thing).

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 wasn't impulsive behaviour
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, he carried out the attack, not the decease itself.

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.

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?

Likewise he can't be put in a situation in which he might produce more deaths. Besides, mental illnesses are classical scapegoats used by defence lawyers to reduce/tame guilts and responsibilities to the suspects, getting his sentence tamed down because an insanity allergy is not fair, not for the victims of such attack.

And while I do agree that his motivations should be revised to prevent further cases, I don't consider that such thing should be used as a mechanism to subtract his responsibility from such attack.

 

[Tornado]

Why is that?

Because there is already a word for someone who commits a crime. It's called "criminal."


As I've already said, to act as if simply committing a crime in and of itself proves that the person was not of a "normal" mental state means that the very concept of crime doesn't apply.

 

[Blaze_409]

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.

I was not suggesting this was justice. I was suggesting that people are not exactly rolling over and sympathizing with the man but rather they want him dead. Just a guess.

 

[dylansan]

Besides, you imply that he should be excluded from any kind of responsibility,

Except that I've repeatedly expressed the exact opposite, and that he should face the full responsibilities of what he did. I think I know where we got off track here and I'll explain below.

Likewise he can't be put in a situation in which he might produce more deaths. Besides, mental illnesses are classical scapegoats used by defence lawyers to reduce/tame guilts and responsibilities to the suspects, getting his sentence tamed down because an insanity allergy is not fair, not for the victims of such attack.

I agree entirely and I don't think any mental illness should reduce the length of jail time or in any way allow him to be set free when he's incapable of respecting rights. If people can get out of the death penalty because they have a mental illness as well, that's just as idiotic. The only reason to do that would be because you have sympathy for someone with a mental disorder, and don't for one without.

The exception to this is people with mental disorders that can be treated or have the possibility of being treated. These are the only ones that matter and perhaps these should be the only ones that should actually be called mental disorders at all. Everything else can just be called bad people, but I still think we should recognize that the cause of either is basically the same.

The problem with that is, the knowledge we have about mental disorders and how to treat them is constantly changing. If we put someone to death and then find out we could have treated what they had, it wouldn't really be fair, which is also why I don't support the death penalty.

Because there is already a word for someone who commits a crime. It's called "criminal."


As I've already said, to act as if simply committing a crime in and of itself proves that the person was not of a "normal" mental state means that the very concept of crime doesn't apply.

Does my wording above clarify my position then? Whether you call them mental disorders or not they still need to be removed from society because they are still criminals. You could theoretically use the terms interchangeably but that would get confusing for the reasons I described above.

Instead, I just want you to consider that the processes that cause someone to become a criminal are not specifically different from the ones that cause mental disorders.

 

[Blaze_409]

What kind of demonic voices in a persons head tells a guy not only how to construct explosives, where to buy the materials, how to get the gun licenses, how to make the huge Ammo purchases without drawing suspicion, buying smoke bombs?. I am completely sane(i hope...) and I have not a single clue how to do anyone of those things let alone for subconcious to conjure up characters that tell me how to set traps, make bombs etc.
So first I believe there where no voices. No mariache etc.

He was a nuero Phd. He must have gone out of his way to learn this stuff.
And in my view, if I start hearing voices in my head I will do anything to make them go away because I understand they should not be there because 12 hours ago and for 18 years there were no voices. So i might actually be insane if I suddenly start to believe voices in my head for a few hours out of my entire life are more normal than the 18 years of silence in my head(you know what I mean lol) And regardless of these voices you still have the concious decision to kill.

Someone with voices in their head telling them everything is lies is going to walk into a grocery store or a mall immediately with a gun attempt to murder people. He's not going to sit around for two months plotting how to make a Bane suit, booby trap his house with hand crafted bombs, and learn how to use guns. Just my opinion.

How can a brain display or portray these images and voices 24/7 for 2 months let alone a week without you going crazy from all the noise in your head. I also say that's physically impossible. there will be ties when you hear the voices and times when you do not. With all cases where people hear or see things it is always intermittent. Meaning there are times when people are completely conscious. In addition make a basic assumption that people with voices in there head look as such. They look like they are listening to somone and may even respond outloud in public settings and get odd looks. He was surrounded by brilliant nueroscientist who did not suspect a thing in this guy.

 

[dylansan]

What kind of demonic voices in a persons head tells a guy not only how to construct explosives, where to buy the materials, how to get the gun licenses, how to make the huge Ammo purchases without drawing suspicion, buying smoke bombs?. I am completely sane(i hope...) and I have not a single clue how to do anyone of those things let alone for subconcious to conjure up characters that tell me how to set traps, make bombs etc.
So first I believe there where no voices. No mariache etc.

Have you considered that maybe the voices didn't tell him how to do it, they just told him to do it, or to learn how?

He was a nuero Phd. He must have gone out of his way to learn this stuff.
And in my view, if I start hearing voices in my head I will do anything to make them go away because I understand they should not be there.

This is a seriously uninformed view of what mental disorder is. What you're saying is, if you had a mental disorder, you would just ignore it. Right...

And regardless of these voices you still have the concious decision to kill.

Prove it. I don't think there is free will, based on everything I've said so far. Would you offer some evidence to the contrary?

Someone with voices in their head telling them everything is lies is going to walk into a grocery store or a mall immediately with a gun attempt to murder people. He's not going to sit around for two months plotting how to make a Bane suit, booby trap his house with hand crafted bombs, and learn how to use guns. Just my opinion.

You keep assuming you know what the voices told him. In fact you're assuming there's voices at all. That's not the only thing a mental disorder it.

How can a brain display or portray these images and voices 24/7 for 2 months let alone a week without you going crazy from all the noise in your head. With all cases where people hear or see things it is always intermittent. Meaning there are times when people are completely conscious. In addition make a basic assumption that people with voices in there head look as such. They look like they are listening to somone and may even respond outloud in public settings and get odd looks. He was surrounded by brilliant nueroscientist who did not suspect a thing in this guy.

You are making so many unfounded assumptions here.

 

[Blaze_409]

You just nitpicked everything i said. Congratualtions. For one I was not saying there were voices in his head. In fact I was saying there probably were no voices. And voices in ones head does not mean mental disorder. I can make voices in my head any time I want. I can predict pretty well what my mother will say for something I have done. That does not mean mental disorder...
And dont put words in others mouths. If I didnt say what you "quote" said then theres no nead to paraphrase and twist.



And If these voices, which i dont believe exist, told him to just do it then that implies the voices left him alone while he was doing it because they couldnt tell him how to do otherwise they would talk. So he was sitting in a chair googling bombs and not wondering why he was doing so or questioning? ok.

The post used logic to show you why its not likely that there were voices in this mans head. He was not seeing people that no one else could see. And there are many different ways to hear voices not all stemmming from Mental disorder. Of course thats irrelevant since i think there were no voices.

Regardless of what I think as its an open forum Im sick of people fishing for excuses for this man.

In court are we suppose to convict people for the facts of the very crime they commited or do we say they are guilty but bring in the jury to say "but did he mean to do it?".... Since when has court been about that. How can anyone have any insight into the human mind. Do we try people for intent or the crime? I must be missing something.

 

[dylansan]

You tried to prove he didn't have voices in his head because if he did have them, then [insert assumption here].

The assumptions you made were incorrect. That's not nitpicking.

Your first was that voices couldn't have caused him to learn how to make bombs, because the voice wouldn't know how to until he had already learned. This is incorrect because the voice could have simply convinced him to learn.

The second, debatably, was that he would recognize that the voices shouldn't be there and try to stop them. Or at least that's what was implied by your assertion that that's what you would do. If this were true then everybody who heard voices would get help, rather than letting it affect them, which isn't the case. If he had schizophrenia, or another mental disorder along with hearing voices, that would be enough to cause large changes in behavior at the very least.

So perhaps you've proved that he couldn't have heard voices unless he had an accompanying mental disorder, in which case he certainly could have.

Then you said this:

Someone with voices in their head telling them everything is lies is going to walk into a grocery store or a mall immediately with a gun attempt to murder people.

Because you know exactly how people will react when they hear voices in their head. I note also that this example only applies if the voices tell the person "everything is lies". There are many other things they might tell them, some of them less clearly sinister, that could convince them to plan out a crime in much more detail.

How can a brain display or portray these images and voices 24/7 for 2 months let alone a week without you going crazy from all the noise in your head.

Who suggested they could? Perhaps the constant voices are exactly why he went crazy (if he did). But wait.

With all cases where people hear or see things it is always intermittent.

Evidence of this? Or is it just an assumption?

In addition make a basic assumption that people with voices in there head look as such. They look like they are listening to somone and may even respond outloud in public settings and get odd looks. He was surrounded by brilliant nueroscientist who did not suspect a thing in this guy.

You're telling me to make an assumption about people who hear voices which may or may not be correct. Have you considered that it might not be correct? Then it means nothing. If people didn't notice maybe it's because there was nothing to notice.

And that's exactly why you haven't proven anything. You've made a bunch of assumptions which you haven't shown to be true, and based your argument on that. If you could prove these assumptions, you'd have a point. But you haven't.

 

[Blaze_409]

Forget the voices.

ok. It is suggested that he has a mental disorder such as Schizophrenia.
How come no one noticed it? Because Schizophreniacs are well documented to exhibit odd behavior.

How come this guy who was working with Neuroscientist who presumably picked him out of 1,000's to join the program goes completely unnoticed by them. Sure they are consumed by there work but even working alongside someone.

And then best case scenario say the symptoms appeared only in the past 2 months so there is an excuse aas to why no one saw it in his early life and college etc. But in those 2 months did he suddenly have the pwoer to turn his Schizophrenia off during the day at work and back on at home? Implying he had control over it..(and you know what that means... [Insert can of worms])

 

[dylansan]

Forget the voices.

ok. It is suggested that he has a mental disorder such as Schizophrenia.
How come no one noticed it? Because Schizophreniacs are well documented to exhibit odd behavior.

How come this guy who was working with Neuroscientist who presumably picked him out of 1,000's to join the program goes completely unnoticed by them. Sure they are consumed by there work but even working alongside someone.

Well, he probably didn't have schizophrenia then. He could have had one of any number of disorders, so unless you intend to prove he didn't have any of them, I'm not sure how disproving one has any effect on any of the arguments being made.

 

[Blaze_409]

What mental disorders do you know that do not have any symptoms? It is through these symptoms(behaviors, thoughts etc) that we say someone has this or that.


The fact that he planned for months(within which he supposedly was mentally incapacitated according to some here) in his apartment but showed absolutely no signs of mental disorder in his workplace at a Neurolab during the day? Tell me how that works.

Well I would need to know what he was doing because he was supposedly withdrawing from the school? Any reason as to why he was withdrawing?

Earlier I read that he was taking heavy pharmaceuticals such as Vicodin. Did he get prescribed these? Or did he obtain them through illegal means and the "voices in his head'?

 

[McLaren]

Earlier I read that he was taking heavy pharmaceuticals such as Vicodin. Did he get prescribed these? Or did he obtain them through illegal means and the "voices in his head'?

Just out of curiosity, but what difference does it make if he was taking Vicodin? I know it can cause quite the euphoric high in higher than prescribed doses or snorted, but it's a pain killer at its core, not a drug that could lead to any sort of violence.

Not specifically asking you, but more so about why an article would even mention it in relevance? I take Vicodin myself, not prescribed admittedly, & the worst it does outside the side effects is really mellow you out. Even then, I'm still capable of making rational choices.

He started taking Vicodin and a number of other drugs to achieve an altered mental state.

That makes more sense, then.

 

[niky]

To be clear, what we do know is this:

He started taking Vicodin and a number of other drugs to achieve an altered mental state.

We do not know how long he was taking this cocktail.

We do not know whether he started planning this before or after he started taking these drugs.

We do not know if there is an underlying mental condition (poor impulse control, bipolar disorder, etcetera) that caused him to start taking these drugs.

We do not know his state of mind over those last weeks. We (here on this board) do not know if the cocktail he was taking had permanent or persistent effects or if they were only short-term. (i.e.: only lasting a few hours after each dose).

We do not as yet know whether the drugs, an underlying mental disorder, underlying psychopathy or something else caused him to do what he did.

That's part of why he goes on trial. Before the judgment must come the truth. Like PM says: knowing the why will be important in deciding what punishment he gets. Either way, he has to be isolated from society, so he's not getting off scot-free.

 

[Ibonibo]

^As he studied such behaviours, he could be acting to get a less severe verdict in court, He probably knows how to fake it even infront of experts.

Comparing animals behaviour to humans

humans have no free will, all physics

Sick or not, he was in a state to plan this, he should be judge as so. As we are referencing it with Batman, would you not trial Joker because he's nuts?

Also with 24 gun victims a day in the US, there are other issues to be considered. he aquired all his used guns legally with the tousands of ammo. Or like the Gun lobby would say, "to comabt the guns, you need more guns" is the biggest crap ever.
As long as this happens:
, **** will happen. And no I am not against banning all guns, but a bit more control would not be that bad. Or do Americans still fear, the British will come back?

All the talking is kind of unnecessary as all is speculation and some remarks are not even objective. We need to wait for more verified information.

RIP to all the victims.

 

[Dotini]

Before the judgment must come the truth.

Good one!

To your excellent list of questions, I and my suspicious mind would add:

- Who prescribed the medications he was taking, and why?
- Who were his advisers, professors and professional associates, and what role were they playing in his course of studies into neurological self-programming?
- Was this guy involved in some sort of guided or structured experiment into altered states of consciousness or, heaven forfend, mind control?
- What is being found on his computer(s) that would indicate what exactly was influencing him into his deadly descent into mass murder?

Respectfully submitted,
Steve

 

[themartlab]

There is a point that i think haven't been discuss. When he was caught, he admitted that his appartment was booby trapped. I think he knew that if he didn't tell about this, police officers would have been killed and with this maybe the death penalty would be asked by the attorney.

Don't you think that if he was that sick, with voices telling him to kill, he would have tell about the bombs? I think it's too easy to tell that we listen to some voices in our head. Anyone can fake to hear voices. The only person who really know if it's true it's him. What if he wanted to commit this? Wanted to become somebody famous?

 

[analog]

And in my view, if I start hearing voices in my head I will do anything to make them go away because I understand they should not be there because 12 hours ago and for 18 years there were no voices. So i might actually be insane if I suddenly start to believe voices in my head for a few hours out of my entire life are more normal than the 18 years of silence in my head(you know what I mean lol).

If only it were that simple.....

 

[GTP_Gearhead]

Irrelevant because still money.



Well one thing we do know is that he never will be released. Harshness of prison could possibly make him learn that what he did was horrible, and maybe he will die at least somewhat a sane man. The death penalty, is just, well, death. This tragedy caused 12 deaths. Why make it 13?

This animal ( I refuse to even acknowledge his name as he obviously seeks attention) would not last one year in general population, they will eat him alive.

If they chose to keep him in solitary for his safety, we'd probably read of his suicide by bed sheet long before his execution day came. That is, assuming Colorado finds him guilty and the sentence is death.

He's fortunate Colorado is a liberal state, if this occurred in the south, he'd be done son. However, the entire event would seem to be premeditation at the highest of levels, I imagine the prosecution will put forth one hell of a case.

My thoughts are with the victims, and I personally would back a swift execution.

 

[Tornado]

Also with 24 gun victims a day in the US, there are other issues to be considered. he aquired all his used guns legally with the tousands of ammo.

Nope. Still not particularly relevant to this case. He still made all of those explosives that he just as easily could have used in the theater.

 

[dylansan]

Sick or not, he was in a state to plan this, he should be judge as so. As we are referencing it with Batman, would you not trial Joker because he's nuts?

Has anyone suggested he shouldn't be?

 

[Dotini]

He still made all of those explosives that he just as easily could have used in the theater.

Good point.

An investigator was quoted as saying they resembled something more usually found in Afghanistan or Iraq. There, the IED has come to be more feared and more deadly than the machine gun or RPG. If returning vets bring this technology back to these shores and the meme spreads into domestic violence culture, then we will have truly entered a new and ever darker phase, where lone bombers and organized gangs might be able to bomb us into a police state/anarchy.

Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive

Respectfully submitted,
Steve

 

[axletramp]

Honestly, the irony is laughable.

 

[Dennisch]

And the Germans also react in their typical manner. You can't enter the movie theater while wearing a costume.

 

[Tornado]

Honestly, the irony is laughable.

No one ever said knee jerk reactions were limited to the government.

 

[niky]

Personally, I wonder that they're not buying bulletproof vests... But in a country where you can purchase military rifle ammunition just about anywhere, that probably won't be much help.

 

[Brett]

Honestly, the irony is laughable.

Not that surprising. There are quite a few paranoid/very paranoid gun owners or potential gun owners. When Obama was elected, gun and ammunition sales went up.