I'd like to ask exactly HOW someone ISN'T mentally ill if they decide to shoot up a school??

People claim "there's no evidence for psychological or mental health issues affecting the shootings" but i don't know how rational of a conclusion that claim really is.

I mean, I'd really like to know what the other reasons are for why someone would do this. Excluding the terrorists known commonly as incels ("I'm going to shoot a school full of my classmates because a girl I liked didn't accept my advances"), there have been individuals that have literally shot up classrooms where only kindergarten kids were.

I don't agree that a shooting like the Sandy Hook shooting was on the same level as that of an incel killer. The man was a grown adult and his victims were all 5-6 year old children, and I'm really wondering how exactly someone didn't rule out mental health in that case. Because if you wake up in the morning and decide to shoot up a classroom filled with kindergarten kids, you are mentally unhealthy to some extent.

This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »

Eternity · 26-30, M

Newsflash: the vast majority of us are mentally ill to varying degrees because the way we live is so very far removed from the way humans evolved to live.

LordShadowfire · 46-50, M

@Eternity Exactly. What people now call PTSD is an evolved survival tactic. If you were terrorized by something in a particular situation, such as an ambush predator dropping out of a tree, you would have a lifetime phobia of trees that would help you live longer. It's not survival of the sanest, it's survival of the fittest. By which Darwin meant survival of the barely good enough to reproduce and make another generation.

Graylight · 51-55, F

@LordShadowfire Slight correction. PTSD is not an evolutionary skill. the whole point of trauma is that it teaches and moves on. It's only when we can't get beyond it that it becomes what we consider the disorder PTSD, which can make every day life unmanageable. Healthy trauma response - absolutely a Darwinian advantage. PTSD, not so much.

LordShadowfire · 46-50, M

@Graylight A few thousand years ago, when everybody knew there was a den of dire wolves in the caves up on the hill, PTSD would keep people from exploring a cave system twice.

Graylight · 51-55, F

@LordShadowfire No, lessons learned from trauma would do that. PTSD would literally incapacitate them.

SatanBurger · 36-40, F

@Eternity No disrespect but I think it's only a half truth. If you think what is natural, the lands used to be subjected to slave raids and our ancestors moved 200 miles every two weeks because of predators and other things. There's nothing to be said that our ancestors as near animals didn't suffer from mental disorders, it's just that it wouldn't be called a mental disorder back then, they didn't have much information. That's probably where the word demons come from at its most primitive.

Eternity · 26-30, M

@SatanBurger slavery and conflict between humans didn't become wide scale until well after agriculture became widespread.

Before that humans were separate wandering tribes and conflict did happen but was rare and isolated; the main struggle was against nature and the beasts of the earth.

For millions of years we lived like that. Far longer than we have been doing the shit we have been doing for the last 5,000 years or so.

SatanBurger · 36-40, F

@Eternity I think mental illness has always been around. I don't think we need physical anything for mental illness to arrive because of genetics, genetics was here long before modern lifestyles. Environment is a factor but I'd say the percent is questionable.. in my opinion.