UCSB shooting, towards an open-hearted response

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Our thoughts, and if you're a spiritual person, our prayers are with the victims and their families. Each and every person killed or injuried is a human tragedy.

As far as the shooter being on the Asperger's-Autism Spectrum, I think one good response might be, 'Everything in his life was probably a contributing factor.' And we can go to to explain that autism spectrum is a neurological difference with sensory issues, differences in communication, etc. And the reasonable 80% of people will understand that we should not blame all people on the autism spectrum any more than we should blame all African-American people because one particular criminal happens to be African-American. Now, some people are unreasonable, but we generally ignore them and build the 80%.

And let's try not to throw anyone else under the bus either, not the men's rights movement, and not the police either, who must get an awful lot of calls from worried family members. Let's really try to take the high road.

PS If we end up defending someone else when we could join an attack, that's both a good thing in it's own right, and plus we probably get positive credit.

I wish I could agree with you, but I can't. The 80% is probably more like 5%. And scapegoats will be sought - by the media (ratings) and by the 95% who substitute unthinking blame for reason, analysis, careful consideration.

Overseas, other Western countries are going to see this tragedy very differently from Americans. In the US, the spotlight will go on the psychology of the shooter, so that he can be blamed (exclusively). Overseas, it goes on America's gun culture (which is extreme compared to any of its Western allies). This is what has happened each time killings like this happen in the US.

With each repetition, attitudes to the US harden - I'm sad to say - as it seems to the onlookers "they just can't learn and would rather people die like this than give up their love of guns". Of course that's not fair to all Americans, but you all get tarred with the same cultural brush by the rest of the Western world. Sad.

May the victims rest in peace. This is a human tragedy first and foremost, and the relatives are in terrible pain.

I would like to offer my condolenses as well to the victims of this horrific action. I am ashamed that the monster who chose to do this shared a diagnosis with me. I am sorry for the families of the dead and the survivors of this atrocity. This was the act of someone who chose the path of evil. We are all challenged in life and we make our own choices. His choices speak for themselves. It is a shame that the acting out of an egoist can be such a blight on the world.

No it is not good in its own right; it depends on the circumstances surrounding whomever one is defending. Positive credit may be socially useful, but it can also be morally reprehensible depending on whom one is defending.

Well, if it's only 5% reasonable people, let's build that to six or seven, I don't see any other choice.  Now, as an example, some people will say even today, "I'm in favor of equal rights for black people, but . . . "  Well, even that's enough to build forward on in a positive way.

On the question of defending someone else, I agree that it depends on the surrounding circumstances.  An easy case might be following Sandy Hook, where we should defend the rights of persons who are schizophrenic as well as the rights of people on the spectrum (because some of the discussion afterwards included knee jerk responses of making it easier to involuntarily hospitalize people).  A harder case is the so-called men's rights movement, which I don't know much about and the little I know is not very flattering.  But I'd ask each of us to consider the advantages of building a middle.  If we summarize the most reasonable aspects of the movement ("women can be just as responsible for the decline of a relationship" and "men should be treated fairly in child custody cases"), it seems to me we make the movement more responsible and constructive as a whole, this adds to the conversation in a good way, and when someone makes an extremist statement, it may be more glaringly obvious that it's unnecessary, crummy, a bad idea, etc.  Now, this approach of looking for the reasonable parts first is the opposite of what the major media typically does.  And we won't always have the patience to do this.  But I think if we sometimes do this, it will pay positive dividends.

Yes, its a combination of many factors. Unfortunately, asd will start to be considered a disorder that breeds killers, as untrue as the statement is. It is no more of a killer breeder than a divorce is. People will not see it this way though.

I listened to the kids video. He did not mention aspergers, yet they say he was diagnosed? I find this confusing. Regardless, there was something else wrong with this kid that caused him to be so self indulgent as he is in the video. Which in my mind, caused him to do what he did. Narcisim, inferiority complex, etc prob had more of an impact on this kids thinking than asd. The asd though certainly made the other issues seem more true than they were. Similar to how a divorce would impact a certain personality type.

Look at how little acceptance lesbian and gay persons used to receive, and how far they've come, although still a long way to go.

So, we just keep making our case. And being brief is maybe the most important of all. (Ha!) We probably have more patience than the average person and writing here we can be long, short, everything in between. But for the general public, yeah, we probably want to be on the brief side. And so different people on the spectrum will make different brief cases, and that's a good thing. The variety of pro-acceptance, pro-appreciation reasons and examples is a good thing.

I heard it suggested that Elliott R. should have just committed suicide and one human death is certainly preferable to seven, but, but . . .

This can too easily morph into something ugly, where on politics discussion boards someone tells someone else to go kill themselves. Nasty, ugly, mean business. Not the way to go.

Instead, let's take basic first aid on suicide prevention and extend it to violence prevention. And if someone is struggling with issues and we only have an outside to medium chance to help them, let's take that outside to medium chance.

Okay, here's the U.S. Army on suicide prevention: 'ACE stands for "Ask, Care and Escort." It encourages Soldiers to directly and honestly question any battle buddy who exhibits suicidal behavior. The Soldier should ASK the battle buddy whether he or she is suicidal, CARE for the battle buddy and ESCORT the battle buddy to the source of professional help, Cartwright explained.'
http://www.army.mil/article/44579/ace-s ... cognition/

So, what might be something similar on violence prevention?

As a Norwegian I can confirm that.

Here things get forbidden pretty easily (sometimes far too easily), so you could almost say we're on different ends of extremes. The attitude towards guns and owning guns is very different here.

I can also confirm that. In Finland gun laws have been the focus of debate and media attention after school shooting sprees. Also the general psychological well-being and service availability have been in the focus of attention.

In Finland private gun ownership is very common, for many households own guns for hunting. Hand gun ownership is very rare and the type of culture, where a person?s right to own and carry a gun is defended with their right to protect themselves seems absolutely strange from the Finnish perspective. Despite the large amount of personally owned guns, gun related crimes in Finland are rare. Guns are tightly regulated and there is a clear, mental difference in how guns are perceived.

We have had two school shootings in Finland. Both shooters are also mentioned in this ASD study, but they weren?t portrayed in Finnish media as ?autistic?. Also the personal accounts on the shooters vary a lot, for example the other shooter was described by most teachers and classmates as chatty, social and very likable. Teachers described him as sympathetic and very ?ordinary?.

One single, easily pointed reason for these acts in my opinion is very unlikely, although people mentally want to believe in a straightforward inborn fault that allows them to simply classify the act as an alike anomaly.

I am all for openheartedness!

Most people aren't even thinking about his alleged autism.

Okay, as far as the whole question of guns . .

This is the country which I love.  This is the country where I grew up.

We do have the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution even though it does start with the phrase "A well regulated militia . . . "  And a fair number of my fellow citizens believe gun ownership provides a kind of safety backdrop if the government was ever to become too tyrannical, although things such as ham radio, Internet freedom, mimeograph machines, and microradio also provide safety backdrops and I wish more of my fellow citizens were up on these topics.

And during his 2008 campaign, President Obama did make a blunder.  It would have been so much better if he had put it in the context of why are so many of our fellow Americans focused on single issue politics or why have so many Americans seemingly given up on economic policies which build the middle class, but perhaps sleep-deprived from campaigning, then-Senator Obama did not put it in context.  It was a blunder similar in scale to a blunder President Ford had made in 1976 about foreign policy.

And then worried about crime and safety, people want the right to own guns to protect themselves.  Maybe that's a downward spiral where more guns contribute to issues of safety, but all the same, downward spirals can be hard to get out of.  And almost any offensive weapon can be conceived to be used defensively in some circumstances.  That said, I personally feel comfortable making a distinction between weapons which are primarily defensive vs. weapons which are primarily offensive, but a fair number of my fellow citizens do not.

I think I am mainly a story / narrative thinker. And so, I'm going to start with an analogy and then apply it to violence prevention.

Years ago, I read about a college health and wellness department that mailed out an information package prior to students' 21th birthday, which included the information that three-quarters or more of students in fact have two drinks or less on their 21th birthday. That is, instead of scare stories, they're trying to go the other way. They're trying to present middle-of-the-road and moderation as the social norm and set this up as the self-fulfilling behavior.

I think this approach is called something like social norming.

And so with violence prevention. Well, gosh, an awful lot of people must have thoughts of violence in response to genuine workplace injustice. And we can just point out what a small percentage of people actually act on these thoughts.

And then a little bit of the zen approach. A person with thoughts of violence might think the thoughts and feelings will build and build until it's inevitable. And that may not be the case at all. The zen approach is that it's more like an ocean wave which will rise but will also fall.

So, what we can try and do is present people with some of the better information which we have. We can't necessarily promise friendship here at WP, that may be too much. But we can be decent colleagues and that's something.

I've got a flying teapot!! !! !! !! !!

Good grief!