Mental Health and mass shootings

[gounion]

I took a stance. I don’t have a party. Your party votes against a great many things that I support. So I do the best I can with what little I’m given as choice of candidates.

Yes you do. You won't vote for ANY Democrat. You have said you support the GOP Governor and both Senators in two states - Tennessee and Georgia.

It's YOUR party that votes against what you say you support.

Tell me - do you support what DeSantis is doing on guns? Gays? Trans people? Disney?

Yes or no?

[ProfX]

Is There a Link Between Mental Health and Mass Shootings?
https://www.columbiapsychiatry.org/news ... al-illness

Are people with mental health disorders more likely to commit mass shootings or mass murder?

The public tends to link serious mental illnesses, like schizophrenia or psychotic disorders, with violence and mass shootings. But serious mental illness—specifically psychosis—is not a key factor in most mass shootings or other types of mass murder. Approximately 5% of mass shootings are related to severe mental illness. And although a much larger number of mass shootings (about 25%) are associated with non-psychotic psychiatric or neurological illnesses, including depression, and an estimated 23% with substance use, in most cases these conditions are incidental.

Additionally, as we demonstrated in our paper, the contribution of mental illness to mass shootings has decreased over time. The data suggest that while it is critical that we continue to identify those individuals with mental illness and substance use disorders at high risk for violence and prevent the perpetration of violence, other risk factors, such as a history of legal problems, challenges coping with severe and acute life stressors, and the epidemic of the combination of nihilism, emptiness, anger, and a desire for notoriety among young men, seem a more useful focus for prevention and policy than an emphasis on serious mental illness, which leads to public fear and stigmatization.

[snip][end]

I certainly support a more extensive mental health care support system in this country, and mental health background checks for firearms purchases, but I'd be cautious on which conditions are considered prohibitive. Do I think everybody who had a bout of depression years ago should not be able to get a handgun? No.

At the end of the day, we have to wonder why it is mentally ill people in other countries don't commit mass shootings at the rate they do in the U.S., and it's not because we have more (as a percentage) mentally ill people here.

[JoeMemphis]

Yes you do. You won't vote for ANY Democrat. You have said you support the GOP Governor and both Senators in two states - Tennessee and Georgia.

It's YOUR party that votes against what you say you support.

Tell me - do you support what DeSantis is doing on guns? Gays? Trans people? Disney?

Yes or no?

And your party votes against many more things I support. So in the real world you don’t get everything you want. You should have learned that by now. So as I said, I do the best I can given my limited choices.

[Glennfs]

Yes you do. You won't vote for ANY Democrat. You have said you support the GOP Governor and both Senators in two states - Tennessee and Georgia.

It's YOUR party that votes against what you say you support.

Tell me - do you support what DeSantis is doing on guns? Gays? Trans people? Disney?

Yes or no?

I support DeSantis because he is doing a terrific job running Florida. Thar coupled with the terrible job Biden is doing and the choice is obvious.
DeSantis, Haley, Tim Scott or Cruz would all be better for our country than Biden, Harris or Newsom.

[gounion]

I support DeSantis because he is doing a terrific job running Florida. Thar coupled with the terrible job Biden is doing and the choice is obvious.
DeSantis, Haley, Tim Scott or Cruz would all be better for our country than Biden, Harris or Newsom.

He's not running Florida at all. He isn't dealing with any actual problems. But he's attacking the top economic driver in the state, isn't he?

There's simply nothing he can do that you will stand against. Kinda like Donald Trump.

And NONE of these people can stand up and take on Donald Trump, so why do you think they could stand up against Kim, Xi or Putin? They're nothing but cowards.

[Glennfs]

He's not running Florida at all. He isn't dealing with any actual problems. But he's attacking the top economic driver in the state, isn't he?

There's simply nothing he can do that you will stand against. Kinda like Donald Trump.

And NONE of these people can stand up and take on Donald Trump, so why do you think they could stand up against Kim, Xi or Putin? They're nothing but cowards.

https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states ... s/florida/

Florida is doing better than the country as a whole. While doing is probably doing better than any blue state.
Of course you don't want Governor DeSantis to get any of the credit

[gounion]

https://www.ibisworld.com/united-states ... s/florida/

Florida is doing better than the country as a whole. While doing is probably doing better than any blue state.
Of course you don't want Governor DeSantis to get any of the credit

Yeah, because of Disney. Not what DeSantis is doing.

There's a real problem with rising homeowners insurance rates, and DeStantis is sitting on his hands. And, when they had the floods recently on the east coast, DeSantis didn't do anything, just kept up his "book tour".

And the taxpayers are paying for his war on Disney which the state will lose. Wonder how many millions in tax dollars THAT will cost Florida.

[Glennfs]

Yeah, because of Disney. Not what DeSantis is doing.

There's a real problem with rising homeowners insurance rates, and DeStantis is sitting on his hands. And, when they had the floods recently on the east coast, DeSantis didn't do anything, just kept up his "book tour".

And the taxpayers are paying for his war on Disney which the state will lose. Wonder how many millions in tax dollars THAT will cost Florida.

https://www.moneygeek.com/insurance/hom ... alculator/

There you go with cost of insurance again. Yes it has gone up but it is 18pct below the national average.
Around $2000 for a $250,000 home.

[gounion]

https://www.moneygeek.com/insurance/hom ... alculator/

There you go with cost of insurance again. Yes it has gone up but it is 18pct below the national average.
Around $2000 for a $250,000 home.

Actual news: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/homeowne ... -disaster/

After the massive losses from the 2004 and 2005 hurricanes, insurance companies such as State Farm—the nation’s largest home insurer—notified Florida officials it was scaling back operations and it would stop offering property insurance to residents. Other major insurers followed suit.

Fewer And Costlier Insurance Options For Floridians

This left Florida homeowners with few options, with the exception of the state-run insurer of last resort, Citizens Property Insurance, or a contingent of small startups mostly backed by private capital.

Some of these startups are now in danger of losing their credit ratings, shrugging off policyholders and—if they’re lucky—being taken over by more robust competitors. Their answer: Raise homeowners insurance premiums by around 12% to nearly 40% during the coming year.

A headline in the South Florida Sun Sentinel newspaper summed it up: “Insurance companies set to squeeze even more out of us this storm season.”
Other Florida Difficulties

But that’s only part of the story. As Crist noted in his prayer, Florida has “other difficulties.” State regulators say upside-down laws that allow contractors and lawyers to gouge insurers for triple what insurance claims are actually worth in some areas have created a legal sinkhole. And it’s threatening to swamp them even during years when there are no storms.

Let’s look at the hurricane problem first. Crist’s plaintive plea was positively answered for nearly 10 years after 2007. Then Hurricane Irma roared through in 2017, followed by Michael the next year, between them wreaking $30 billion in damage.

Due to insurance policy rules that allow Florida policyholders up to three years to make a claim, it took more than a year for what insurers call the “loss creep” to start catching up.

Florida homeowners insurance rate increase filings with the state’s insurance department started pouring in last fall and regulators couldn’t deny them. Florida insurers saw a profit of almost $800 million in 2014 dwindle to a net loss of $340 million in 2019, according to Citizens CEO Barry Gilway.

Non-Renewal Notices Flood The Market

Then non-renewal notices for Florida home insurance policyholders most at risk started to arrive.

Many insurance agents with clients’ whose coverage was terminated scrambled to find substitutes. But Florida property owners with $300,000 to $399,999 in coverage pay an average of $2,350, compared to the national average of $1,252 for the same amount of insurance, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

“It’s also important to know that most homeowners’ insurance policies do not include flood insurance,” warns state Insurance Commissioner David Altmaier. Flood insurance can easily add another $1,500 to the bill, according to quotes from websites that sell it.

And some homeowners may not be able to purchase insurance at all, except from the state.

“In Orlando if a house predates 2010 and is worth less than $300,000, no company is going to write [insurance for] you,” warned Locke Burt, CEO of Security First Insurance Co. in a June 2020 Sun Sentinel article.

Florida’s current and unconventional insurance structure is based on “reinsurance,” which protects insurers from major catastrophe losses like hurricanes. Its property insurers—many of which came into existence after the 2004-2005 calamities—don’t possess a lot of capital to pay claims the way major insurers that have left, or trimmed down coverage, can.

Instead, these insurers rely on private capital like hedge funds that put up billions of dollars, gambling that hurricanes won’t happen so often that they’ll lose money. But if they do, they’ll raise their rates. And reinsurers in Florida are predicting they’ll be raising their rates 25% to 45%, according to Artemis.

Florida home insurance companies will need to pass that increase along to homeowners in order to get their reinsurance coverage.

[Toonces]

I support DeSantis because he is doing a terrific job running Florida. Thar coupled with the terrible job Biden is doing and the choice is obvious.
DeSantis, Haley, Tim Scott or Cruz would all be better for our country than Biden, Harris or Newsom.

I guess he's doing a terrific job if you're straight and white. Otherwise, probably not.

I get it, most conservatives view things on how it impacts them personally.

I'm neither black, transgender, or gay (et al) but I surely can see that there are definitely institutional apparatuses that make existing much more difficult for them. And I listen to them and hear them when they say these things. I can't/won't dismiss them simply because their life experience is not mine.

I also don't understand how to wage a war against one of the state's biggest employers, because they hurt your feelings, is doing good.

Could he be doing worse? Probably. I mean, he still has more time.

Also, I am rabidly anti-authoritarian.

[bradman]

And we have a process to address unjust laws. It’s called the judicial branch and we have a Constitution. But to your point, if you as an individual wants to ignore a law and accept the consequences, that’s up to you. Civil disobedience and addressing your greciances to the government is one thing. But when a city or state government ignores the law without consequence that’s another. That undermines the whole system. When government officials decide to place their individual judgement above the judgement of the legislature, that undermines the whole system. When POTUS ignores the law and his responsibilities, that undermines the whole system. So all this sanctuary city and state bullshit has undermined the ability of the federal government to do anything really difficult because the states and cities in this divided country will simply ignore the laws they don’t like and enforce the laws they do. What’s the federal government to do? They have allowed this behavior to occur and looked the other way. So if you think a federal gun law will be any different than drug laws or immigration then you are living in a fantasy. You can’t enforce such laws without the willing participation of the states. It isn’t enough to roll out the supremacy clause anymore. Nobody respects it. It means nothing. Because the Federal Government has allowed it to happen.

You want tighter gun laws. You aren’t going to get nearly what you want and if you did happen to get it passed by the Federal Government, you will not be able to enforce it locally without the states. And therein lies the rub. There will be sanctuary gun states.

Lastly, this whole gun debate isn’t going to go anywhere until
Something is done about crime and the border. That will mean rehabilitating the police and law enforcement after bitch slapping the whole profession and cratering morale. Who in their right mind wants to be a cop in that environment. It’s like being the bastard at a family reunion.

So to answer your question. Nobody is winning. Everyone is losing. We used to believe in government and now nobody trusts government. Mostly people look out for themselves.

Didn't say it was mouthful not worth the effort to try and understand.

[Toonces]

People with mental illness are more likely to be a victim of violence than cause it. And sometimes, that is celebrated.

[bradman]

People with mental illness are more likely to be victims of a society that cares less and less about them.

It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.

[ZoWie]

The border is relevant to the issue if you live in El Paso.

It's not the problem in L.A.. It depresses wages by flooding the city with migrant labor, but they DO work their butts off, and I thought that was the American Way, and all that. They're not the reason the homeless issue is making the city uninhabitable.

If they ever did REALLY close the border (if that was even possible), LA's economy would collapse. Everyone knows this. A lot of winking goes on. Wink wink.

---------

If one was to attempt a ranking of all our problems in severity we'd have to agree on the metrics first. Then by the time we were done, technology would have changed it all again.

The underlying problem is that people are lost. This is the unverbalized underlying cause. How can anyone maintain optimum mental health when the basic assumptions of civil society change three times in the average human life span? No one can adapt quickly enough as the culture re-invents itself every 20-30 years, especially when this is accelerating and at a mathematical point where curves typically are about to go vertical.

[bradman]

It's one of a few things i'd take issue with. Lumping the border in with gun violence. Seems to me the vast majority of those that cross the border are doing it to get away from gun violence. Not to mention most all gun violence and mass shootings here are done by U.S. citizens.

Lost and apprehensive. Everybody seems on edge.

[ZoWie]

Yes, in most countries gun violence is really gang violence or political insurrection, while here it seems to be just normal people, usually who looked at too much social media and too little of anything else. Here, it's not considered as something bad people do. It seems to be accepted as the cost of freedom, or justified by some other rhetoric being fed people by skilled propagandists hired by the usual business interests.

It's really kind of interesting that gun violence has the effect of making the country less free, but hardly anybody seems to notice or care.

[bradman]

And we have a process to address unjust laws. It’s called the judicial branch and we have a Constitution. But to your point, if you as an individual wants to ignore a law and accept the consequences, that’s up to you. Civil disobedience and addressing your greciances to the government is one thing. But when a city or state government ignores the law without consequence that’s another. That undermines the whole system. When government officials decide to place their individual judgement above the judgement of the legislature, that undermines the whole system. When POTUS ignores the law and his responsibilities, that undermines the whole system. So all this sanctuary city and state bullshit has undermined the ability of the federal government to do anything really difficult because the states and cities in this divided country will simply ignore the laws they don’t like and enforce the laws they do. What’s the federal government to do? They have allowed this behavior to occur and looked the other way. So if you think a federal gun law will be any different than drug laws or immigration then you are living in a fantasy. You can’t enforce such laws without the willing participation of the states. It isn’t enough to roll out the supremacy clause anymore. Nobody respects it. It means nothing. Because the Federal Government has allowed it to happen.

You want tighter gun laws. You aren’t going to get nearly what you want and if you did happen to get it passed by the Federal Government, you will not be able to enforce it locally without the states. And therein lies the rub. There will be sanctuary gun states.

Lastly, this whole gun debate isn’t going to go anywhere until
Something is done about crime and the border. That will mean rehabilitating the police and law enforcement after bitch slapping the whole profession and cratering morale. Who in their right mind wants to be a cop in that environment. It’s like being the bastard at a family reunion.

So to answer your question. Nobody is winning. Everyone is losing. We used to believe in government and now nobody trusts government. Mostly people look out for themselves.

[bold]That i tend to agree with. They are being hit from both sides.

People tend to forget, as fucked up as some police departments are, they are what hold the line between chaos and civilized society.

[ZoWie]

The border is not relevant.

The migrants are not who is doing the mass shootings. There is a different sort of dynamic going at the border which is related more to economics and less to individual resentments.

[bradman]

If "the border" is taken out, and the sentence was to stop at "crime," the point makes more sense.

[Number6]

[bold]That i tend to agree with. They are being hit from both sides.

People tend to forget, as fucked up as some police departments are, they are what hold the line between chaos and civilized society.

Police departments are authorized with the authority/power to arrest/detain people, cite people for infractions of the law, and use deadly force under the law and within established standards of police conduct. With the authority/power also goes the responsibility, accountability, and liability for their actions. While some people may see the police being under attack what is happening is the police are being held to account when they misuse their authority/power. In most cases, IMO, the police do act responsibly and in most instances their interactions with the public goes unnoticed because it isn't sensation enough to receive media attention. It's the police misuse of their authority/power that the media covers because they can sensationalize it for their audience.

[bradman]

Police departments are authorized with the authority/power to arrest/detain people, cite people for infractions of the law, and use deadly force under the law and within established standards of police conduct. With the authority/power also goes the responsibility, accountability, and liability for their actions. While some people may see the police being under attack what is happening is the police are being held to account when they misuse their authority/power. In most cases, IMO, the police do act responsibly and in most instances their interactions with the public goes unnoticed because it isn't sensation enough to receive media attention. It's the police misuse of their authority/power that the media covers because they can sensationalize it for their audience.

Hope ya don't mind Joe.

Lastly, this whole gun debate isn’t going to go anywhere until
Something is done about crime and the border. That will mean rehabilitating the police and law enforcement after bitch slapping the whole profession and cratering morale. Who in their right mind wants to be a cop in that environment. It’s like being the bastard at a family reunion.

There's the word rehabilitating in there. My guess would be that i interpret that differently than some would. The police forces needed rehabilitation. The consequences of that are acceptable. The last thing we'd want to do is rehabilitate them along the the lines of the fucked up "warrior training" concept.

But then there's this...

[bold] Fucked up social media or not, there's a point to be had there. Morale seems to be at an all time low.

[ZoWie]

It's not just social media, nothing's ever that simple. Things have been off the rails since I was a kid, and it only gets worse, and I have thought about it for years now and come up with a whole fancy historical dialectic. The engine that really keeps it going is fear. People are scared. Most of the time it's expressed via blaming popular scapegoats du jour, as provided by a runaway self-feeding combination of folklore and media. This year it's "Woke." Other staples are guns, God, and gays. Wait three years and it'll be something else, likely migrants. But people stay scared.

[bradman]

Nothing is ever that simple> Ain't that the truth.

i've also thought about it for years. For me it's something about a cycle. Not so much the cycle of history repeating itself anymore. It's more a cosmic hot and cold. From something as simple as the economy, to wars, to disease, to human nature, to the moon and stars, it's a cycle of building it and then burning it down.

[Motor City]

Nothing is ever that simple> Ain't that the truth.

i've also thought about it for years. For me it's something about a cycle. Not so much the cycle of history repeating itself anymore. It's more a cosmic hot and cold. From something as simple as the economy, to wars, to disease, to human nature, to the moon and stars, it's a cycle of building it and then burning it down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQtXoNNb8Po

Hundreds of Ways

[ZoWie]

History doesn't have to repeat itself, because history is motivated by the fundamentals of human society. We're not as far away from extended families hiding in caves as we think we are.

You can always think like European philosophers and find fancy names for it, but it's really plain old survival mixed with the uniquely human desire to understand it all as a means of dealing more effectively with it.

It is said that crows can make tools and do very simple math, and their feeding does tend to resemble a sophisticated military operation. I also saw a crow funeral on our lawn once. That does not make crows human. Were they human, they would gather at the sacred tree and leave part of their food there as a means of appeasing cosmic forces that they cannot control.

Human behavior is not cyclical, but the processes it creates can be. They produce competition, which produces conflict, and you can watch it go round and round alternating periods of strife with periods of regrouping.

You definitely see a dialectical process in politics. It's a giant oscillator. There are other models, such as a wheel or one of those wave tanks that rocks back and forth, but these are oscillators too. The dialectical process of history is the one thing, perhaps the only thing, that Marx got right. It's almost Newtonian. Every action generates and equal but opposite reaction. (Presumably this is what keeps the universe from blowing up.) Everything seeks equilibrium but that's a full time job right there. Marx is up the butt on most of politics, but he nailed it that any human creation by nature generates a mental antithesis in people's minds, and conflict ensues. This includes, of course, the conflict against conflict itself and an infinite regression of these.

Marx of course didn't enshrine context the way we do, because that wasn't a Thing yet. He was channeling Hegel, and Hegel hadn't gotten that far from the Abrahamic religions' concept of context being something provided by whatever supernatural divine force created the universe. The evolution beyond that was the 20th century's contribution, for better or worse.

Now, there are other cultures with different prophets and thinkers, but right now we've all ended up in the same place. We know how to destroy ourselves completely for all time, and we are aware of other processes in the universe that have a nonzero probability of doing it for us. It makes us very unhappy people. Here's the challenge. How we restore confidence in an age when confidence itself is revealed as a human concept?