Struggling to Coe to terms with shooting in plymouth

[Thomasina79]

Not an AIBU I know, I’m sure we all are. This was a misogynistic man who identified as an ‘incel’. I’ve never heard of this phrase, but this man”s attitudes to women are common enough. Ok he hated his mum, not unusual, but no reason to kill her. But why kill the others, especially the child? This is all so sad and shocking and it seems that violence against women is becoming so prevalent again.

CAMHS needs massively increased funding to reach these kids before they get to this point.

CAMHS is a sticking plaster. There are societal and cultural issues feeding into this which I think CAMHS would struggle to do anything to unpick. Violent and abusive fathers, gendered behaviour expectations (“boys don’t cry”), porn culture etc etc. Nothing CAMHS can really do about any of that. It’s essentially an anti-radicalisation programme that’s needed for these young men.

@ParityJ

What is major concern is how badly the mentla health care sector has been stripped of funding over the last few years.

If people could get therapists and help then this would be beneficial to everyone.

If the Plymouth shooter had help at 16 or 17 or 18, his life would not have become what it did

We don’t actually know that. A school friend of mine had extensive help in his teenage years and went on to be violent and eventually kill himself in a crowded place, thankfully he didn’t kill anyone else first. I presume the difference wasn’t in the help he’d had, but in the fact that he wasn’t nursing a grudge against all of society.

what sort of support?
support for loneliness?
unhappiness?
Mental health. HTH

@jasminoide

I'm so bloody infuriated that people/the media are trying to "understand" his motivations, him being labelled as "lonely" etc. If he was brown he'd simply be called a terrorist, which he is in my book.

This. ^ I am also infuriated to see a few people trying to explain the actions of this sad lonely friendless little 'man' who was a virgin. (All the 'incels' are virgins. It stands for 'involuntarily celibate.')

This wasn't just some sad little virgin. Sad little virgins don't go around murdering innocent people FFS. It IS terrorism. He WAS a terrorist! Why the hell anyone would say it isn't, just because there are allegedly just a few thousand of them just baffles me. And it's actually been widely reported this past few days, that there are actually 100s of 1000s of 'incel men.'

And they are full of extreme hate. Like most misogynists, they are also homophobic, and racist. And in many cases, they are obsessed with guns and Donald Trump. This man was a terrorist. Just because he was a white, British, man, that does not mean he was not a terrorist.

From wiki

'Discussions in incel forums are often characterized by resentment and hatred, misogyny, misanthropy, self-pity and self-loathing, racism, a sense of entitlement to sex, and the endorsement of violence against women and sexually active people."

"The American nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) described the subculture as "part of the online male supremacist ecosystem" that is included in their list of hate groups.[17][18] Incels are mostly male and heterosexual.

He's a fucking terrorist and it's a disgrace that he is not being referred to as one. As a pp said, one good thing came out of his. At least he is dead. That's one less of these monsters breathing our air.

@Thomasina79 YANBU at ALL. Violence against women is just never going to stop sadly. Most men still think women are beneath them, and are less worthy. Even the good ones are not perfect; I know a few men who are all supportive of women being treated well, and claim to love women, and think they deserve only good treatment etc. etc...

But these same men don't like it when a woman knows more than them, when a woman achieves higher than them, and when a woman comes out with an opinion they don't like, and she refuses to back down.

Even my own DH, doesn't like it when I know something that he doesn't, or if I know the directions somewhere and he doesn't, and very often he refuses to take on board my suggestions about things. He doesn't like it when I think of something good and sensible, that HE didn't think of. Many 'decent' men I know are the same. All supportive of the 'ladies,' as long as they don't get ideas above their station, and think they are more clever than the men!

The media arnt going to report properly on the massive right wing terrorist threat, most of it is ideologically aligned

I am not sure that better mental health support like CAHMS would help- if you have had any contact with CAHMS you would know six sessions of polite talking aren't likely to scratch the surface, but a more intensive intervention including medication for untreated disorders might, I suppose.

However, I think people are reluctant to accept that a) some people are sociopathic, just a % of the population, doesn't mean they go on to kill people, but some people just don't have empathy for others and some even like hurting other people b) the best we may be able to do in these type of circumstances is to monitor them and remove their means of killing- if this guy hadn't had that particular gun (why would he be allowed to have ANY gun, there's absolutely no justification for that whatsoever) then he might have killed one person but is unlikely to have killed or injured 13. There needs to be much tighter gun laws and better supervison of dangerous/radicalized individuals. His own mother must have lived in complete fear of what her son could do- he was a very big chap who hated her and hated all women and society, poor her.

Mental health services are not miracle workers and sometimes simply stopping people who have out of control/dangerous tendencies (as this man had already flagged up, hence the 'anger management' course) having weapons and monitoring them may be all we can do.

And misogynist poison like Jordan fucking Peterson is treated as mainstream

I am close to a family where the DS (late 20s) fits this pattern, worryingly. He is on the autism spectrum but, unlike most in that group, also has serious issues with anger, depression, inability to hold down a job.
He believes the world is against him - everything that happens is "society's" fault. Has gone down the rabbit- hole of conspiracy theories - New World Order and anti-vax, etc etc - and I wouldn't be at all surprised if he has not explored the "incel" stuff as well. Is really nasty to his Mum and has never had a girlfriend.
He has never been physically violent to my knowledge but I do worry what might trigger an outburst.
It is an incredibly complex situation - and the reality is that successful, well-paid, socially adept individuals almost NEVER become killers/terrorists. And that applies no matter what social/political badge they may wear - so Islamist/neo-Nazi/Incel/whatever.
MH provision is woefully inadequate and needs addressing, the Incel sites need taken down. Yes, society needs to be protected from people like this but addressing the issues early could prevent some individuals from ever getting to this point.
My friends are desperate for their son to have treatment but it is almost non-existent.

I think too much is being made of his Incel rantings and his alleged radicalisation, though I agree that the misogyny of these people really needs to be addressed.

When I first saw the news reports, it reminded me of the Hungerford massacre - another man, obsessed with firearms, who shot 16 people and killed his mother. Michael Ryan can't have been radicalised online: in the mid-80s, it's unlikely he had access to the internet at all and there certainly wouldn't have been the online social media we have today. The cases, so far as we know about the latest, are similar.
Robert Sartin, later in Monkseaton, was a another mentally ill character with a Satan obsession, too early to have been influenced by SM because it didn't exist then.

The common factor in almost all the mass shooting incidents in this country is a firearms obsession. Mental illness and/or sexual deviance seems to play a part, too.
They aren't targeting women and children, they are shooting indiscriminately. The only one who specifically targeted children was Thomas Hamilton, and that was linked to his suspected paedophilia.

Mass shootings in this country are extremely rare and none of them appears to have been influenced online, though I don't doubt that they would all have posted similar rants had they had the access and means to do so at the time.

@Balonzette

It seems from the videos posted of the killer that he felt desperately lonely, insecure, unloved, unwanted, and rejected. He felt like a failure and felt unlovable and physically disgusting. His father was also apparently a violent criminal so had didn't have that positive male role model. He seems like a really sad young man who desperately needed mental health support and treatment which his mother had been trying to get for him but which unfortunately is barely available anymore in the UK. The incel movement seems to attract people like this - they're just very unwell and/or very unhappy and this movement attracts them. I am in NO way excusing what he did, but rather trying to understand it. When someone reaches such a low, and has become so full of pain, which turns to rage and hatred, they are capable of awful, evil things. It's horrific. If we had adequate mental health care and resources in the UK, maybe his mother could have got him the help he needed long before he got to this point 😢

Why don't you try telling that to the mother of that poor little girl and her dad who lost their lives in such a horrible and brutal way? Try telling that to the relatives of the other poor souls who were killed. Try telling that to the witnesses who will be traumatised forever.

FFS.

@Clymene

Suicide is not the same as mass murder *@WorldsBestBoss* and I think it's absolutely sickening that you are drawing an equivalence between people who can see no point in living and this bloke who went on a mustering rampage.

I'm not. I feel you are misunderstanding my posts if this is the conclusion you are coming to.

Absolutely questions need to be asked the guy had serious mental health issues . I read his family had been trying to get help but nothing came of it.
I’m not laying the blame at the mental health team and I don’t know all the facts at all, but I’m familiar with mental health I have a friend who only go help when put in prison. I actually think that more needs to be done for mental health people as we can’t just say oh he was a lunatic who lost it . How did this happen and why ?. In all honesty there are a lot of desperate people out there and yes they don’t all go on killing sprees, this is extreme and it doesn’t happen often , but it shouldn’t happen at all . I feel for the family and friends of the victims and the people who live in and around the area , it really is a shocking thing to happen .

I don't think it is becoming prevalent....if it was it wouldn't be so shocking. I see stuff like "incel" as a hook to hang a very serious mental health issue on in the same way as many antivaxxers are also conspiracy theorists. I also think that, again like loads of other issues, its now more visible because of social media.

It’s the senseless killing of children in the news that’s affected me most. Last week it was the story of what happened to the poor little girl who was beaten to death by her parents, and now this. I can’t imagine what Sophie’s family must be going through right now. She was completely innocent. Just a little girl out with her dad. Tragically in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s not fair. What with this and now news about what the poor people (especially young girls) in Afghanistan are going through right now. Absolutely soul destroying. Humans can be so wicked.

It's unforgivable. I don't care what mental health issues there are. It does not excuse killing innocent people. Ever.

@AlternativePerspective

He was a psycho.

I have no idea about this movement he was apparently part of, but it’s worth remembering that he didn’t only kill females.

Whatever he was a part of, he made this decision for himself, not for others, and the only positive thing to come out of it is that he’s dead.

Incels don't just hate women, they hate men who can, as they see it, 'get' women. It's a nasty movement, and ought to be banned off all media platforms.

@GuyFawkesDay

He was also someone who as well as having ADHD/other SEND, will have accumulated a huge number of traumas as a child. His father was clearly a nasty bit of work.

It's only now that we are understanding the impact of these "ACEs" (adverse childhood experiences). Some kids will have so many or have so little support that their brains are actually changed by their childhood.

So whilst I utterly condemn the guy....I also can see how this happens. And add in the awful porn culture and internet access and you get very vulnerable individuals who are indoctrinated into a way of thinking. I see it in kids I teach at school, and how even a decade ago we were not so aware of this.

CAMHS needs massively increased funding to reach these kids before they get to this point.

This.

Exactly! The killing of children 'because a woman won't shag me'

And people are excusing this with 'yeah but the poor lad........'

Jesus wept...

His gun licence was only returned a month ago. It was removed for a year after he assaulted someone. He completed one of those mandated anger management courses as a result of which, was considered safe with a gun.

A violent man was smart enough to give the right answers and pass a course. Then he’s let loose with guns. Did no one in authority think this was a bad idea?

@jasminoide

I'm so bloody infuriated that people/the media are trying to "understand" his motivations, him being labelled as "lonely" etc. If he was brown he'd simply be called a terrorist, which he is in my book.

Yes absolutely

It seems from the videos posted of the killer that he felt desperately lonely, insecure, unloved, unwanted, and rejected. He felt like a failure and felt unlovable and physically disgusting. His father was also apparently a violent criminal so had didn't have that positive male role model. He seems like a really sad young man who desperately needed mental health support and treatment

What the actual fuck? If he wasnt white would you be trying to understand him and sympathise with him? Like fuck you would. He's a murdering bastard. I live with complex mental health conditions every single day and I've yet to kill anyone.

@Crowtooyo

It's unforgivable. I don't care what mental health issues there are. It does not excuse killing innocent people. Ever.

It’s not a excuse it explains it , wouldn’t you rather that people get help or shall we dismiss these peoples as monsters as easier for society to understand? . Isn’t that more frightening that people like this are living amongst us and are basically a ticking time bomb ? .

@Crowtooyo

It's unforgivable. I don't care what mental health issues there are. It does not excuse killing innocent people. Ever.

Not one person on this thread is excusing what has happened. They are discussing explanations for it.

Iv name changed for this post but the thing that stood out for me was his mother trying to get help and no one listening. Iv been that mother albeit not on this level (yet). I have spent years, since my DC was very small trying to get help for his mental health issues and facing a brick wall every time. He was once investigated by CAMHS and discharged as he is highly intelligent and knew how to play the game. We are now pretty much NC (not my choice) and I will never stop fighting for him but this is my worst nightmare.