This was written before the Allen Texas shooting. Note: shooter had nazi symbols all over him and the designation of a nazi death squad. He related and considered himself part of the movement.. However, there is also something more profound going on here. I found this study to explain much: It also speaks to why mental heath services are important, but not a panacea.
Between 1966 and 2000, there were 75 mass shootings. Of those, 9% were motivated by racism, 1% by religious hatred, and 7% by misogyny. Of the 32 mass shootings that have occurred in the U.S. just since 2015, 18% were motivated by racism, 15% by religious hatred, and 21% by misogyny......From the study reported by this article: the largest single study of mass shooters ever funded by the U.S. government has found that nearly all mass shooters have four specific things in common.A new Department of Justice-funded study of all mass shootings — killings of four or more people in a public place — since 1966 found that the shooters typically have an experience with childhood trauma, a personal crisis or specific grievance, and a “script” or examples that validate their feelings or provide a roadmap. And then there’s the fourth thing: access to a firearm.
The increase in ideologically motivated mass shootings has coincided with the emergence of a newly emboldened far right, who’ve forged national and even international alliances of hate online. The sharp rise in misogyny-inspired shootings also squares with the rise of the “Incels,” short for “involuntarily celibate,” an online subculture comprised of angry young men who deeply resent and blame women for their isolation.MENTAL HEALTH IS A FACTOR — BUT RARELY THE CAUSE
Two-thirds of the mass shooters in the database had a documented history of mental health problems. While this seems high, researchers point out that roughly 50% of Americans have experienced some kind of mental health problem at some point in their lives.Moreover, the percentage of shooters whose crimes were directly motivated by the symptoms of a mental disorder (such as delusions or hallucinations caused by psychosis) is much smaller: roughly 16%. That is a smaller percentage than shooters motivated by hate, a workplace grievance, or an interpersonal conflict.
It does not help that Colorado ranks near the bottom in mental health services for adults. Most of the mass killers fall into the category of males, younger adults. The attempt by the legislature to set up a coordinating agency last year to resolve the issue has devolved into a heap of personnel problems and the firing of the agency head.
That 2022 study by Mental Health America, a national nonprofit that advocates for improvements in behavioral health care, found Colorado had the nation’s highest rate of adult mental illness and lowest access to care. The State of Mental Health in America | Mental Health America (mhanational.org)
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