James Holmes may have Aspergers?

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You need to use a lot of qualifiers to make that claim.



Psychopaths aren't normal. Those who aren't violent don't really use their nature to succeed in business so much as they use it to succeed at the expense of others, via dishonesty, cheating, and manipulation. They do not view the world like other people and I would go so far as to say that in some ways their perspective (from what I have read) is likely more removed from "normal" than autistic people are, although they have a much better time adapting to "normalcy" to some degree.

Psychopathy was an actual diagnoses, but not anymore.....at best its mostly a confusing term nowdays. Though I'd say someone who is a psychopath in the traditional sense would be more likely to hurt others than a non-psychopath. However evidence points to most who could be considered 'psychopaths' living a normal life.

Well yeah that is more or less what I meant, but in the world of corporate america those seem to be desired traits...hell even in politics that seems a desired quality just look at how all the presidential candidates try to make the opposition look bad for their own personal gain. Also maybe you and I define normal differently what I see as normal would be someone who functions well in society and follows the majority of social norms. Many psychopaths fit in that category, its not like one has to be a kind caring person to get buy in this society you know.

From everything I heard regarding the shooter, the only basis people have been making for claiming he has an ASD is his apparent "fixation on weapons," (the words of a local sporting goods store owner who claims he was eyeballing the guns but never purchased any from him) particularly firearms and explosives. According to the reports, he seemed to have a knack for booby-traps, which explains his apartment room. Many reports regarding police interaction with the shooter and witnesses at his hearing made reference to his facial expression (particularly his eyes) and demeanor, which most in the peanut gallery referred to as "aspie eyes." These factors aren't enough to make a definitive statement regarding his neurological or mental condition and even in totality cannot be utilized to establish diagnostic status. Typical media response (along with the indirect goth references that surfaced after a person who knew him claimed he "changed" after hanging out with kids who "wore trenchcoats" and a neighbor's description of the type of music blaring from his room). They did the same thing after Columbine and they will continue to do so.

Well I see kind of a cycle, I still don't think having a mental illness or not determines whether or not one is capable of such a horrid thing. But at the same time when the media spreads around these sterotypes which only serve to further alienate people who already feel that way...I feel that could be a factor in the cases where a mentally ill person does resort to something like that. I mean its hard to say with this guy if he was just being a sadistic psychopath or if something else was going on since there is only limited knowledge out.

But I think trying to stereotype certain groups of people as potential mass shooters, is a big mistake....that only serves as another factor for future shootings. From personal experience the days and months following the shooting in which a student was killed at my highschool were hell for me........you'd think it would have brought 'everyone' closer together but even after that people treated me like 'the outcast' and if anything I faced even further ostracism. At the time I had an ongoing intrest about WW2 and the Nazis....so I ended up obsessing so much over that to forget how I felt at school I ended up playing with the idea of being a nazi(I never believed it, it was just a way for me to feel tough like I didn't need anyones help or support). Luckily I didn't go around telling people this or talking about it to them but even so eventually it concerned my brother so he told my mom and long story short I ended up snapping out of it. So to me that gives the impression the further you alienate people especially after things like that the harder it is for that person not to become filled with hate.

note* I hope no one judges me too harshly for that , I hardly tell anyone in real life about that little phase of my life because yes I am ashamed of it.

Er...no, I don't think it should matter. He is accountable for his own actions. This was a premeditated attack on innocent people, so it's not like he didn't know what he was doing. And even if people start vilifying us, why should it matter? They'd be dumbasses if they did, considering that most people on the spectrum are law abiding citizens and tend to have a strong sense of morality and an obligation to their fellow person. In other words, most of us would be Batman if we could be (though I'd rather be Spiderman, even though he's from Marvel).

I know that stigma is a problem, but I'm not going to let bother me. Haters gonna hate.

Honestly, I have read a lot about the shooter, and there are many things that point to ASD for him. He was highly intelligent. Old high school friends, colleagues and associates described him as introverted, shy, socially off. He also seemed to have a fixation with Batman, and as another poster mentioned, he was able to hyperfocus on building all of those bombs. Also, all of the people in his apartment said that no one knew him, that he would not make eye contact with anyone when he passed them in the hall. He also appeared very awkward in that video of him when he was making a presentation when he was 18.

I don't think that having AS makes someone a potential killer. I believe in this case, the fact that he was socially isolated, it made it harder for him to cope with his failings. He didn't have a network in place to help him cope with all that he was going through, so maybe in that sense he started to slip from reality. If he does in fact have AS, I do not think that in and of itself caused him to become a mass murderer. It almost seems like he was a genius who crossed over the line into insanity.

Plus, most of the stories I have read, the media has not really mentioned AS. It is mainly just speculation by different people such as our group-----

But was he really socially isolated? Look at this article.
This does not sound completely isolated, does it?
People who are part of a clique are not always equally integrated and when their mutual paths split with the course of time, they don't see each other or talk to each other like before.
There was a recent article about his profile at adultfriendfinder which stated that he tried to meet up with some women but apparently did not want anything sexual, instead he wanted "to chat". If that's true....that's strange and I don't mean the desire to talk to someone but to make a profile at this kind of site with another kind of aim.

well, of course we, as a group, will shy away from indicting him based on AS.
We live with this, and we know it's not an escalator to mass murder.

The problem is that if he does get the dx of Asperger's or HFA, then the chatterbox talking heads like Joe Scarborough are going to cram it down our collective throat, and then when Asperger's disappears into DSM V, we'll have a minefield of presuppositions about who we are.

"Oh, that guy has Asperger's. You know, like Cho and Holmes."

So, it's really irrelevant what we want to argue right now, because his dx is going to hinge the entire tone of the discussion for Asperger's for the next 10 years or so. Except for all the people who believe in MK Ultra and whatnot.

Well maybe he won't even get diagnosed with AS. From the looks of him in the courtroom, it looks like he has slipped into another realm altogether, and he really isn't talking to police. Maybe he really has gone insane. I am not sure they would even be able to get him to talk enough to come up with a diagnosis.

It is his defense team that will come up with a diagnosis. They have to. What else could they do? I doubt it will work but I don't see what else they could use. The various media speculations (like Scarborough) won't really matter or decide the direction this discourse takes. It will be whatever the defense team uses that will decide.

I wasn't referring to all semi-automatics, just the ones in the ban, from 1994, but it is interesting that shortly after that ban was lifted, in 2004, is when rampage killings escalated in the US, while violence in general continued to decrease. Not much use in using an assault rifle to kill one person. It wasn't the end of the world when the ban was instituted in 1994, it couldn't hurt anyone to re-institute it, and even if it only saved a few lives in a potential rampage killing, it would be well worth the effort.

However, the gun lobby is a powerful one in the United States; those assault weapons mean more to some of the owners than the potential for lives saved, in these type of incidences where a human being determines that the goal is to kill as many people as possible. One can't even legally do that when deer hunting.

One more incident like this where a legally obtained assault weapon does not jam and 100 people die, will likely result in the federal ban put back into place. That was a real potential in this incident, if the assault rifle had not jammed and should be a lesson to take action to ban the weapons now, but I don't see it happening, this go around. 12 dead and 51 injured apparently does not apparently meet the bar of concern to take action, in the US. Per the factors associated with this incident that is the only potential effective change identified so far that might reasonably result in a reduction in the carnage from potential incidences like this in the future.

This incident has proven without a doubt that there is no way to predict who will be involved in an incident like this, where it will happen, when it will happen, or even why it will happen if a psychotic break from reality is part of the mix. The least the government could do is to attempt to limit the tools of carnage where reasonably possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban

can anyone see a change in his constitutional health??

He could easily have planted an improvised explosive device in the theater (a 15 liter fuel can can hold enough HE and fragments to kill pretty much everyone in a typical sized room in a theater, and it'd fit under a chair easily). He could have done many things to kill a lot of people in a confined space that doesn't require too much know-how, rather it just requires the ability to plan.

Hence, weapon used is quite trivial.

what the heck happened to his long full eyebrows he had just a few years earlier?

He's a guy who failed badly in the first year of his neuroscience PHD and quit "got encouraged" to leave the course. He'd got few friends to turn to. A lot of those nice people who said hello and he ignored won't really admit they ignored him or even bullied him 'it was only a bit of a laugh'. Did those he really just want to chat (if he did was he trying to connect with someone desperately as he needed to) with the girls or did he want more and get insulted by them 'get lost you freak' etc

You have a normal guy NT/AS or any disorder he's alone feels like his lifes been destroyed. No chance of a qualification or job, probably in debt, alone and isolated by people who ignore and belittle him constantly...he'll show them. It's not temporary insanity its not a syndrome its either one poor guy that couldn't handle reality any more (could have been helped if society were nicer) or a crazed killer with mental health issues (what ever they can find). Makes people feel like 1) he's not like them and 2) they play no part in this or doing the same sort of things to others.

In the dock he's either drugged up to the ears or he's completely emotionally exhausted. Can't imagine I'd be in the best of states trying to sleep in a cell knowing I'd killed those people. He did it, he's guilty, he should die (possibly, I'd prefer it to life in a box) but there is a lot more things wrong.

Would say very few non mentally ill people kill except as part of a job such as police, soldier etc until they reach that point. Sociopaths and psychopaths could do it but probably wouldn't they have other ways to get fun (plus aren't that lonely usually). Would say AS could have had a bearing on him being lonely but can't see why it makes a difference any other way (except possibly the bombs).