On Mon, 10 Jan 2011 08:52:18 -0600, "Pete C."
wrote:
snip
For another thing, it would be very helpful for profilers,
forensic psychiatrists, security specialists, etc. to have a
real live captive shooter to observe and talk to, even if he
is just another "bad ass looser," was on bad dope or has
some sort of a brain tumor. "Long-haired pot smoking hippy"
is not much more to build a
preventative/predictave/protective program on than "ban all
guns."

So what do you do if he does have a brain tumor? Is he actually
responsible for his actions if a tumor ate part of his brain???
==============
Much depends on which part. We will have to get expert
medical opinion. If a tumor destroys some parts of the
brain it takes out the sense of smell, others it takes out
the ability to speak, etc. If still other areas, such as
the pre frontal lobes are affected, it takes out much of the
sense of self and what is generally called conscience or
both the ability to tell right from wrong long term and/or
the drive for self-preservation.
http://www.allpsychologycareers.com/...on-making.html

If it is a tumor or other organic defect [new infective
agent such as a variant of BSE (mad cow disease) or a new
STD?], he may wind up in a secure mental facility rather
than prison, but the critical thing is to determine the
source of the tumor or other organic defect, i.e. is this a
one off case (**** happens), or due to environmental factors
such that we can expect a rash of such incidents, possibly
not with a gun but with arson or assault with a motor
vehicle (which is where the gun banners go off the rails).
For example did he spend hours a day playing 3D computer
games? Did he talk several hours per day on his cell phone?
All new stuff with unknown long-term effects.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_congre...90aW5nc3VzcA--


At the very least he should "star" in one or more training
videos with his current [at the time of the shootings]
appearance and clothing for social workers and school
guidance personnel/instructors so they will have some idea
of what to look out for. From later media articles, his
behaviors seem to have been bizarre in the extreme to the
instructors and fellow students at the community college he
was attending. (This is complicated by the goal of
community colleges to reach out to everyone in the
community, even the whack jobs.)
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/...tructor-i.html
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/...ior-recor.html

On the one hand we don't have the resources to lock up all
the nut case/whack job college students, and on the other
hand the huge majority of these morph into dull staid
taxpaying/voting citizens...

One of the last big shooting incidents of this type was the
"Texas Tower Massacre." While cause and effect was never
determined the perp was discovered to have an organic brain
defect/tumor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman


-- Unka George (George McDuffee)
...............................
The past is a foreign country;
they do things differently there.
L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author.
The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).