They claimed he (John Houser) has been treated for an unknown mental illness, but relatives say he's bipolar.

As a mentally ill person, he shouldn't have been able to buy a handgun they say.

2 dead.

[Moreta]

He was also a tea bagger and white supremacist. He also hated gay people and loved Hitler.

Lafayette Shooter Was Teabaggin?, Gay-Hatin?, Hitler-Lovin? Fool, THANKS OBAMA! | Wonkette

I think he was just seriously off his rocker.

From the article:
"Just remember, that’s the only important part. Not guns, not radical ideologies that incite people to violence. He was a disturbed, lonely man, and it will always be Too Soon to talk about any other issues that led to this tragic event."

[SillyKitty]

The help for the mentally ill here is crap. he shouldn't have been able to buy a gun IF he disclosed his condition. It's way too easy to just lie.

[~Christina]

One day the masses will realize that there are just evil shytty humans that do evil things and it has nothing to do with a "mental illness"

As for buying a gun? Its a simple 20 question process. If you don't disclose then your approved as long as a person has no criminal history, felony and whatnot.

That said ..... I wish people would *****ing understand anyone can get a gun, they are bought and sold on the street all the time and there's no way to track it... Banning all guns? that's only going to mean the bad guys will have guns, Sorry I will keep my guns and use them if I have too, I hope I never "need" to use one... But guns don't kill people , the people that pull the trigger is who kills people.

When someone is stabbed to death I don't see " get rid of all the knives" plastered all over the news and internet.

This whole mess just makes me angry....

Some people are just evil..... plain and simple and there actions cant be explained away hiding behind a mental illness.

[BadWolfC]

Originally Posted by ~Christina

One day the masses will realize that there are just evil shytty humans that do evil things and it has nothing to do with a "mental illness"

As for buying a gun? Its a simple 20 question process. If you don't disclose then your approved as long as a person has no criminal history, felony and whatnot.

That said ..... I wish people would *****ing understand anyone can get a gun, they are bought and sold on the street all the time and there's no way to track it... Banning all guns? that's only going to mean the bad guys will have guns, Sorry I will keep my guns and use them if I have too, I hope I never "need" to use one... But guns don't kill people , the people that pull the trigger is who kills people.

When someone is stabbed to death I don't see " get rid of all the knives" plastered all over the news and internet.

This whole mess just makes me angry....

Some people are just evil..... plain and simple and there actions cant be explained away hiding behind a mental illness.

But the bad guys already have the guns. And it really does need to be a lot harder to get them. I'm not a violent person, and I have absolutely nothing in common with this guy, but do I think that myself and people like me should be allowed to have access to guns? No, because I know if I have enough bad days I'll probably go off the deep end and do something bad. The difference between knives and guns is that guns make it so much easier to kill or horribly injure someone. It's hard to really do that with a knife if you think you might have regrets. But if you have one lapse in judgement with a gun, your life could change forever. As someone who has attempted suicide multiple times in the past, I can tell you that one reason I'm still alive is because I didn't have access to any guns. It would have just been too easy to end my life with a gun. I had knives for a while and I wasn't able to do much harm to myself with them. That's the reason that there isn't an outcry about them like there is for guns.

Originally Posted by SillyKitty

The help for the mentally ill here is crap. he shouldn't have been able to buy a gun IF he disclosed his condition. It's way too easy to just lie.

That was also another point made that there isn't enough help for the mentally ill. MI's fly under the radar and dont receive sufficient treatment to help.

While we are throwing billions at foreign countries, our infrastructure is falling apart and our citizens go hungry, untreated, and lost.

[Yoda]

Originally Posted by ~Christina

Sorry I will keep my guns and use them if I have too, I hope I never "need" to use one... But guns don't kill people , the people that pull the trigger is who kills people.

Agree times a thousand.

I never thought I would actually need a gun. But if I had not had my gun in 2000 I would not be alive today. Thank you, dad, for teaching me gun safety and how to shoot.

This is such a tragedy and my heart goes out to all the family members left to deal with this. I just cannot even imagine.

I make no comments on others peoples rights to own a gun. That is not my business. I live in the suburbs, with an alarm system, 3 dogs, and 3 large men living with me. I don't have any need for a gun.

I had a 51/50 last year, and so I'm not allowed to own a gun for another 4 years. This is my second 51/50, so I've been unable to own a gun for 10 years of my adult life. This has been a good thing. During my mixed states and depressions, I would have taken my life if I'd had one. I'm sure of this. Next, when I went through my last manic phase, I was sure I was being bugged and followed. I begged my husband to buy a gun since I couldn't. I video taped the cars going past my house all day and slept with a machete next to my bed. My husband flat out refused to get a gun and I'm glad he did. I know I wouldn't have hurt anyone intentionally, but I was terrified and on edge and completely sleep deprived. I didn't need a gun.

My uncle shot himself in the head years ago and lived.

My son is bipolar and wants a gun. He had a 51/50 recently and will not be able to obtain one. I'm very glad.

But I do know there are legitimate reasons to own a gun, and I'm not the gun police. I know some people get very angry when they hear their gun rights can be taken away for having a 51/50. I can't make a blanket statement about how I feel about it.

This is just so sad. There is not enough help and support out there.

[BeyondtheRainbow]

The article I read said his family said he was "manic depressive and bipolar". I know it's a small thing but that error makes me roll my eyes and groan because it means that someone else is now thinking they are 2 different things and I've seen people online who think manic depressive is ok and bipolar is much much worse. Which is exactly what we all need people to think.

Originally Posted by BeyondtheRainbow

The article I read said his family said he was "manic depressive and bipolar". I know it's a small thing but that error makes me roll my eyes and groan because it means that someone else is now thinking they are 2 different things and I've seen people online who think manic depressive is ok and bipolar is much much worse. Which is exactly what we all need people to think.

I seen that..."Manic/Depressive and/or Bipolar" on the news....what?

Well, he was older, so it is possible that earlier in his life he carried the manic/depressive diagnosis and later in his life it was changed to bipolar. Or, he was only diagnosed under the m/d label and they realize that in current terms the official diagnosis would be bipolar. They family may just be reporting what diagnoses he had officially held in the past.

I get into the gun debate with my US friends all the time. We know our petty debates will not change anything - so it is actually quite interesting to discuss it and it rarely gets heated. But if I mention my views on guns on forums etc I get blasted!

I totally agree that people with mental illness should not have access to guns. In a society like the US has, that is hard to police and it is hard for citizens to accept. The gun violence is so involved in the US's history that banning them at this stage will not help. I do not know what the solution is for the US. What I do know is that the majority of our illegal guns come from the US, and that gun violence is more accepted and less shocking the more it happens in our media and first world countries.

I have no fear of gun violence. The arguement that the bad guys still have them doesnt stand here. Some bad guys have them, some good guys have them, the violence with guns is much less as there are simply less guns around. There is other violence, sure, but our rate of gun violence is so low because there are strict regulations and the general public cannot get guns easily thank god. In general, violence is less and police trust is higher.

[wiretwister]

well I am a NRA certified instructor and I work with boy scouts and have for 12 years, the parents and adult leader respect and trust me with there kids ... we have never had a incident ... I really believe if I disclosed to them I am BP they would feel very differently ... they know me but I feel the stigma would be too much ... I have struggled personally if I even should be teaching gun safety and conducting live ranges ... any comments welcomed ... currently the law in my state has no restrictions on MI and gun ownership ... unless you have been committed to a mental institute ( whatever the definition of that is ) ...

[hopscotch26]

everytime someone shoots a place up or dies something horrible, it always comes out that the person had bipolar. why cant it just be a normal person that had a bad day and wanted to do it. they make us all out to be bad people that will kill everyone if we get angry or depressed. its very upsetting.

I would not and do not own a gun and would not allow one in my house.

JMHO

The reality is, mentally ill people DO commit crimes. We also have a higher than average rate of being a victim of crime ourselves. But you hardly ever hear about that.

I feel the media SHOULD be allowed to disclose the mental condition a person has in these situations. However, it would be nice if they had a disclaimer "Not all mentally ill people commit crimes, and many are abused and victims of crimes" But I highly doubt that will ever happen.

The mentally ill, can and do become violent. But so do neurotypicals.

When they report "The person has bipolar disorder" I don't become upset. They are just reporting facts. But I do become "sad" as I know the public will interpret this information differently than should be. The general public needs to be more educated on the mentally ill.

[ensconce]

Yea the media usually says they did it just because they were mentally ill. They never dig deeper. Always ends up being a bipolar or schizophrenic. according to a study on crimes only 4 percent of all crimes are committed by schizophrenics and 10 percent by bipolar people, the media makes it sound like 100% sometimes.

Originally Posted by ensconce

Yea the media usually says they did it just because they were mentally ill. They never dig deeper. Always ends up being a bipolar or schizophrenic. according to a study on crimes only 4 percent of all crimes are committed by schizophrenics and 10 percent by bipolar people, the media makes it sound like 100% sometimes.

Well, when you think about it, these particular shootings get mass media attention because they are mass shootings, not because they are the most common types of crimes being committed. In actuality, these mass shootings are still pretty rare; they just receive much more air time because they are so horrendous in nature. It does appear that most of the time, the individuals committing such mass shootings do end up having a pretty extensive history of mental illness, sometimes exacerbated by drug use which seems to be a very dangerous combo for the most seriously mentally ill. Secondary to mental illness seems to come terrorism, and often some combination of the two.

[raspberrytorte]

Manic/depression and/or bipolar disorder. Lol. Redundant yes.

(Sorry. That's making me geek out for some reason.)

I wish the manic/depression and bipolar people would stop making us all look bad.

[Skywalking]

They're just scared to use the word terrorist in the context of a white man murdering a lot of people because of his ideology, even though that's what it is. You don't hear them analyzing the state of mind of other extremists from other races. It's partially a racial thing. Shooter a white man? "Oh he was sick, it's not his fault" versus someone of another race who commits a terrorist act "Kill them all he was a monster and they're all like that."

Watch the dialogue and when they start trying to make excuses for what he did, ask yourself if a black man or a person of Middle Eastern descent had done this would they be giving him the same excuses. It's part ableism against people who have MI, and part racism. White men aren't allowed to be called terrorists even when that's what they are.

Have to say they're not rare, there's been over 100 school shootings in the U.S. since Sandy Hook in 2012 and that's not counting the general mass shootings in public places, like the one in South Carolina just a few weeks ago.

(Eta apparently that figure is all shootings at a school not just mass shootings, all of the mass shootings are at 75 in the last three years or so a google search says.

Actually, that is not true at all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/us...or-threat.html

The "original" American terrorist was the white Oklahoma City bomber. The boy who shot up the people in the church recently was widely denounced as racist and the crime viewed as a hate crime.

In this case, this shooter's mental illness had been documented previously. They aren't making that up. You can be mentally ill AND a terrorist.

i didn't even hear about this

can someoone fill me in?

what actually happened

[Skywalking]

A few cases all those years ago doesn't stand up against the dozens more white men who committed acts of terror since then and never got dubbed terrorists. When the cops caught the white terrorist who murdered those people in an historically black church, they bought him Burger King. You don't buy terrorists Burger King.

I promise you I'm not talking out of my backside here, this is an unfortunately extremely well documented phenomenon, and I say that as a professional member of the media myself.

[TRIGGER FOR SA REFERENCE IN THE QUOTE]

Despite the fact that Charleston Police Chief Greg Mullen said early on that “this is a hate crime” and that a witness reported that suspect Dylann Roof said to the black people he killed, “you rape our women and are taking over our country”, conservative columnist AJ Delgado maintained that the “odds would favor [the crime] NOT being racial”, Republican presidential candidate Lindsey Graham called him a “whacked-out kid” and suggested he was “looking for Christians to kill them, and USA Today referred to him as a “lone wolf”. The Daily Beast described the killer – a man who reportedly sat with a bible study group for an hour before he started to kill people – as “quiet and soft spoken”, averring that he had black friends on Facebook, even as his nine victims remained unnamed and uncelebrated.

The excuses to call a white, male mass-killer anything but “a terrorist” are familiar – they’re part of a refrain repeated over and over again when a horrific crime intended to terrify a group of people is committed by a white man. It’s a refrain of denial. (The same denial happened when Elliot Rodger penned a misogynist manifesto before his killing spree: He’s not sexist, he’s just crazy!)

Why don't Americans call mass shootings 'terrorism'? Racism | Jessica Valenti | Comment is free | The Guardian

But listen to major media outlets, and you won’t hear the word “terrorism” used in coverage of Wednesday’s shooting. You haven’t heard the white, male suspect, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, described as “a possible terrorist” by mainstream news organizations (though some, including The Washington Post, have covered the growing debate about this discrepancy). And if coverage of other recent shootings by white men is any indication, he never will be. Instead, the go-to explanation for his alleged actions will be mental illness. He will be humanized and called sick, a victim of mistreatment or inadequate mental health resources.

That narrative has formed quickly for Roof. Soon after his arrest Thursday, former FBI special agent Jonathan Gilliam appeared on CNN, saying that Roof probably “has some mental issues” and didn’t know he had done anything wrong. That is the power of whiteness in America.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poste.../?tid=pm_pop_b

Some people with bipolar or mental illness are" bad" people.

They could be racist, misogynist, hateful and violent irrespective of their mental illness.

If I became psychotic, I would never "become" racist and shoot up a church.
100% certain.

[CopperStar]

I have always felt very strongly that when a person has mental illness, their mental illness combines with personality; their mental illness is not their personality. The two combine and form a result.

For example, my last severely delusional episode sent me on a quest to try to save all the homeless people in California. I arrived at the LA airport with no shoes (they broke on the plane), a giant first aid kit and the sheer determination of intense bipolar delusion. And off I went. Makes sense to me in retrospect, because prior to the episode, I had been researching homelessness in the U.S. My delusions tend to draw on something recent when they happen.

If someone is extremely hateful and prejudiced, and can normally blend in with society, and then have say, a severe mixed episode, their delusions are likely going to draw on their natural personality and thoughts to at least some extent. The only role bipolar disorder would play, is taking their natural self and sending it spiraling out of control.