Possible Link Between School Shootings and Suicide?

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Fnord
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16 Dec 2013, 11:56 am

First, there is this article on intervention to prevent suicide:

Suicide Prevention

Quote:
Warning signs of suicide

Most suicidal individuals give warning signs or signals of their intentions. The best way to prevent suicide is to recognize these warning signs and know how to respond if you spot them. If you believe that a friend or family member is suicidal, you can play a role in suicide prevention by pointing out the alternatives, showing that you care, and getting a doctor or psychologist involved.

Major warning signs for suicide include:

1. talking about killing or harming oneself
2. talking or writing a lot about death or dying
3. seeking out things that could be used in a suicide attempt, such as weapons and drugs.

These signals are even more dangerous if the person has a mood disorder such as:

4. depression or bipolar disorder
5. suffers from alcohol dependence
6. has previously attempted suicide
7. has a family history of suicide.

A more subtle but equally dangerous warning sign of suicide is:

8. hopelessness

Studies have found that hopelessness is a strong predictor of suicide. People who feel hopeless may talk about "unbearable" feelings, predict a bleak future, and state that they have nothing to look forward to.

Other warning signs that point to a suicidal mind frame include:

9. dramatic mood swings or sudden personality changes, such as going from outgoing to withdrawn or well-behaved to rebellious.

A suicidal person may also:

10. lose interest in day-to-day activities
11. neglect his or her appearance
12. show big changes in eating or sleeping habits.

Take any suicidal talk or behavior seriously. It's not just a warning sign that the person is thinking about suicide - it's a cry for help.


Then there is this article on intervention to prevent school shootings:

FBI disrupts shootings through interventions

Quote:
The FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, for years, has been working with state and local authorities to profile potential offenders with the goal of preventing violent crimes like mass shootings. The "prevented" shootings and violent attacks from January through November of this year represent 148 cases that a division of that unit, the Behavioral Threat Assessment Center, has conferred on during 2013. And that number is up 33 percent from 2012, Andre Simmons, unit chief of the center, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

In the past year, this unit has received about three new cases a week referred by federal, state, local and campus law enforcement, schools, businesses and houses of worship, Simmons said.

The Behavioral Threat Assessment Center gets involved when someone notifies law enforcement, for example, about some troubling behavior, and law enforcement reaches out to the center to help assess the situation.

...

As an example, Simmons referred to a case his unit consulted on a few years back. There was a man at a university who began to display bizarre behaviors coupled with an increasing interest in firearms, Simmons said. This man created a makeshift shooting range in the basement of his home where he lived with roommates, and he used pictures of the roommates as bull's-eyes for target practice. He also was involved in animal abuse, Simmons said, and he was making statements that were troubling. Collecting firearms and target practice are not illegal activities, but the roommates feared for their safety. So they alerted university authorities, Simmons said.

The university reached out to the FBI behavioral analysts and worked with them to develop a strategy. Working with mental health officials and campus police, a "caretaking" interview was arranged with the man, Simmons said. And that meeting resulted in a voluntary admission to a psychiatric facility.

"Once in that facility, he was deemed to be of such compromised state, that it turned into an involuntary evaluation," Simmons said. "And the attending physician noted as well that it was not really a question of if he would attack, but when, given the statements that he made and the thoughts he was disclosing."


(It is important to note that AS and ASDs were NOT mentioned in either article.)

COMMENT: I wonder just how similar the FBI checklist for outward-directed violence is to the NIMH checkline for inward-directed violence. Keeping in mind that people who commit school shooting often commit suicide before they can be captured, I wonder what other people think of this -- Thoughts, Please?



2wheels4ever
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17 Dec 2013, 12:28 am

I've been to the very edge of murderous revenge and suicide both - when I discovered I was able to self-generate oxytocin the striking-out violence disappeared virtually overnight. In a lighthearted moment I'd say what these guys need is to be like the egg and get laid. People seem to like to joke about it but anecdotal evidence suggests intercourse results in a good mood for its participants.

In a more serious vein; anyone who engages in murder-suicide is doing it backward


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