Mass shootings

[Dill]

(03-22-2018, 03:43 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: This is the root of the problem. The answer to your question is no. There are quite a few mental and emotional conditions that could lead someone down that path, and in 99.99999% of the cases they don't. What leads someone down that path is a cocktail of conditions and circumstances that combine in a way which is unique in every incident.

Looking for the silver bullet diagnosis that will stop all or most these types of incidents is like looking for the cure for cancer. Which type of cancer? There are thousands of types and some are radically different than others....

But that wasn't exactly what the research showed. First, it showed a "general" difference in pre-frontal lobes. Not an "overall" difference. Second, the study was limited to inmates only. Further research showed that there are people with the condition living in society who never commit a crime, violent or otherwise. It was just an indicator of a propensity to act a certain way (i.e. risk negligent, impaired decision making, etc.), not an indicator that they would turn to a life of violence and crime (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1737651/ ) .

Well said. The cocktail metaphor is right.  Social factors, like alienation, exposure to the right ideology during the right life crisis, and more, can I think be better predictors, to the degree that prediction, or identification of propensities and likelihoods, is possible.  

It is wrong to suppose we can eventually produce a list of factors to check off, because societies and ideologies change, and when they do so do the triggers.