To be concerned that the shooter in the US keeps being referred to as Aspergers

[pingu2209]

This worries me, I feel like the press are referring to the shooter's Aspergers are the reason for him flipping out and killing the children and teachers. He clearly had mental issues but Aspergers is not likely to be the issue.

There are so many people with Aspergers or are on the autistic spectrum but this does not go hand in hand with mental issues in terms of agression.

I feel this could end up in a nasty backlash.

"I'm concerned that we're getting to the point where we can't acknowledge any of the negative behaviour or traits which go together with certain disabilities and mental health problems."

It's not about that though, it's about not assuming that certain disabilities and mental health problems automatically mean negative behaviour.

And if you think that on the whole society is at the point where it doesn't acknowledge negative behaviour, then you are living in a different reality to me. It is so so far from that point.

I think Morgan Freeman's take on it is right....he says that when we stop giving all the attention to the people who commit crimes like this...and instead focus on the victims, then there will be less chance of other vulnerable people aping what happened.

He says that the idea of going down in history as a "monster" is more appealing to a disturbed mind than offing oneself in a basement. So the press needs to stop the overly salacious reporting and instead look more at the victims.

I have personal experience of aspergers. I don't think he did this because he had aspergers, but some of the traits of aspergers could have contributed. In that I mean socially he could have suffered at school which has made him resentful/angry etc. The same as if someone without aspergers suffered from bullying etc. So it wasn't the aspergers that made him do it but his experiences did.

I hope that makes sense.

I agree Purple

lydia - no people with severe autism do not have violent traits. They may be aggressive, they may show physically challenging behaviour but they do not meet the WHO definition of violence because they do not have intention to cause harm, they generally do not have capacity.

People with severe autism live in secure homes with 24 hour care because they are vulnerable. They are far more at risk from society, than society is from them. My son for example is unlikely to ever develop enough road sense to be able to walk down the street independently, so he will always have to live in an environment he can not leave of his own choosing (i.e. with locked doors). This does not make him a crazed killer - he will live in that environment to protect HIM and to stop him being killed.

I am also very about the spectrum reflecting increasing levels of 'violence' with those with severe autism seen as little more that crazy, wild, animals who need to be locked away.

Yes talk about difficult, challenging behaviours, but don't just make stuff up or spout crap out of ignorance.

Agree mrsmushroom

Is there a list of famous people who went through a Goth phase?

I'm a trustee of a trust for an autistic child, my partner has asd man and I've taught autistic children. I'm not a professional but have some idea what I'm talking about. I understand parents of autistic children being protective, that autistic children can experience bullying and be a victim of violence themselves and that even the most severe autistic person might not be aggressive. However, I think the distinction between intentional and spontaneous, unintentional violence is irrelevant to the victim and the danger posed by the individual. It is also the case that some of those with asd and /or mental health problems are kept in secure accommodation partly for the protection ofI others (as is the case with someone I know personally who gets frustrated and lashes out).

This is IMO a difficult one. If we shouldn?t bring up a disability to justify someone committing a horrific crime such as this one, is it then right that we use the same disabilities to justify and even seek leniency for lesser crimes?

E.g. when Gary McKinnon hacked into the Pentagon, there were harsh cries of ?But he has Aspergers, he can?t help it, you can?t prosecute him.? And yet he had knowingly breached US security by not only hacking into the Pentagon, but leaving messages behind indicating that he had done so. He was no less a criminal, but as his crime was, in the eyes of the general masses, not a serious one, it was deemed ok to use his disability for justification and therefore as a bargaining tool to gain him leniency. Certain behaviors are often associated with certain disabilities, and as such, it?s not necessarily unreasonable to bring up the fact that someone had x or y disability if they commit a certain crime in order to better understand the reason behind why it might have happened. But it?s a dangerous road to go down to only use disability as a justification for leniency when we the public feel some should be deserved, and to discount this fact if the crime is so horrific as to be beyond the realms of public understanding because of fear that others with similar disabilities might then be perceived in the same way.

Truth is that we don?t know what, if any, disabilities this particular individual had. And we don?t know whether, due to the nature of any of those disabilities, he may or may not have displayed certain behaviors which may or may not have led to him going out and ultimately killing 27 people.

If he had, for instance, been diagnosed with skitzofrenia or psychosis or any other mental illness would people be disconcerted by that? No-one who commits mass murder on that scale is mentaly normal, that is a fact. But that doesn?t mean that everyone who is mentally ill is a murderer. But we shouldn?t seek to discount the possibility of the level of someone?s disabilities impacting on their ability to commit crimes.

As far as most of us are concerned, anyone who goes out and shoots 27 people is an evil bastard, it is really that simple. Except it isn?t ? it is not common for someone to just snap and go out on a killing spree, there will almost certainly have been some issues there previously. But we don?t know what those are, and we don?t know whether concerns were raised. But we as people do seek to understand why someone does something this horrific, because nobody wants to think that a normal thinking human being would behave like this out of character. And that is why e.g. the media will put a spin on it, ?he had x disability or was a loner or used to behave in y manner,? and if his having aspergers was known to them then that would have been published in the same way.

Sorry for typos. On my phone.

Lydia, plenty of NT people are violent. Are you going to lock up everyone without a diagnosis of autism or Aspergers? Because most violence is caused by people who do not have either diagnosis...

I specifically said that I would rather this crime happen again than lock up everyone with a particular profile even if there was a proven link between that profile and criminal behaviour.

From the reports that are currently coming through he did have aspergers or autism.
And a mother that believed that doomsday was coming, and was stockpiling food and worse of all weapons.
That poor kid never had a chance, as did the little ones he murdered.
The more I hear of this story the more I want to bury myself away from the world and our so called humanity.

Saintly some people are ignorant fuckwits. Yes as parents if children with AS wevave every right to be concerned and are not overreacting so people please don't be patronising

ASD doesn't kill people, guns do.

People with autism are more at risk of violence from neuro typicals than the other way round.

The bandying about of labels such as Mentally ill, Autism, Aspergers, simply allows America to fudge the real issue, which is that the country is awash with guns, legal and illegal, both of which are used to murder people. Its also pretty offensive and isolating for the vast number of people with one or more of these conditions who lead quiet law abiding lives.

Mentally ill people, non mentally ill people , people with behavioral problems and people without, all have comitted vast numbers of gun murders which occur year in year out.

The point is that, mad bad, or with pointy teeth and fucking horns, they couldnt act upon their murderous impulses with impunity if guns were not as easy to come by as a bag of crisps.

All the hand ringing and sympathy in the world wont bring those children back, and hand wringing and sympathy, whilst bleating on about the right to bear arms wont prevent the next massacre. Its positivley sickening and hypocritical.

America needs to wise up to the reality and not let themselves off the collective hook with the old "guns dont kill people, its humans who shoot people". And the even more spurious, "its the mad people that do it, lets look at health care but still keep our guns".

They couldnt bloody do it without out guns could they? The bloke in Newtown, with or without Aspergers might not have been armed to the teeth if Mummy didnt happen to have 3 friggin guns in the house. But not to worry, its the American way.

oh I absolutely agree that the gun laws need tightening.

But my point is, when we e.g. use Aspergers as a get-out for someone like Gary McKinnon who also committed a crime (except no-one died) then the automatic follow-on is to use a disability (be that AS or any other) as a reason why someone like this particular individual did what he did. We can't have it both ways, can we?

If I see a child that is older than about five having a meltdown in a shop then I would assume that child to have some kind of disability that leads to him/her having such meltdowns. If I saw a similarly aged child behaving in a particularly violent manner (indeed there is such a child in my ds' class, and he is ten yo) then I equally would assume that there are some underlying issues at play which mean he does not behave within perceived normal boundaries. That is not wrong, is it? Better to assume that a child has other issues rather than just to assume he/she is a viollent thug/naughty (depending on behaviors).

The gun laws in the US absolutely need changing. But equally there needs to be some investigations into why it is that so many people in the US end up committing mass murder in this way. There are plenty of other countries where it is perfectly possible to own a gun. And while the laws are tighter in these countries, the level of gun ownership isn't necessarily lower (Canada, Switzerland, to name but two). So while I absolutely agree that the laws re gun ownership in the states need changing and tightening, I also think it's very black and white to think that that, and that alone is the answer - it isn't. And to look into mental health provision is surely the first place to start?

Yy to Monty.

re Gary mckinnon and having it both ways
That's just n0t a good comparison, the difference was what he did is more of an autism thing to do, wheras going on a murderous rampage isn't

I think wannabe makes a very strong point re the treatment of disabled people by the criminal justice system. There was a post on mumsnet a while ago by a woman whose autistic son was sectioned when he became a serious threat to her and her other children. I believe he threatened them with knives etc. Personally I would not want to see a person with severe autism who harmed someone treated the same as another criminal because I don't believe they would have the same intent. I would want to see them receive psychiatric care. To take that approach society has to acknowledge a link between the disability and the crime.

Lydia no different to anybody else. Everybody has the capability of being violent, it's not the preserve of autstic people or mentally ill. Of curse we are Protective our children need us to be, when we hear car crash media like DM ad the responses towards Autistic people from its readers, the very people who will judge us ad our children, ad tutt disapprovingly. My dd 5 is as gental as anything, sage s more likely to be bullied and have violence inflicted upon her, tat makes us worred for te future

Gish sorry about the typos typing on an I ad is not easy

lydia Surely in that case it's not linking the disability to the crime that is needed, instead it's making sure the consequences take into account the disability?

Should also point out society already has no problem whatsoever linking the disability to the crime.

Same goes for the goth thing. if he was one then there are valid reasons to think it could have contributed.

manicinsomniac