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Comment by toothbrush | Hacker News Reader

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> It's interesting that you use mental illness to describe violent behaviour you don't understand.

It's not so unreasonable. Perhaps the shooter has a very logical reason for having shot at the drone (and the neighbour's house, previously), but it seems to me very unlikely that there is any other reason than paranoia or recklessness. Having said that, i expect that a judge and/or mental health professional should evaluate this more carefully and with better access to facts than you or i on a forum somewhere—i'm just outing an opinion, not saying the shooter should indeed be treated/medicated/institutionalised.

> That kind of stigmatising use of language contributes to a culture where shooting and killing the mentally ill is common.

I actually think this is the wrong way around. I agree that we should recognise mental illness as a serious problem, and offer individuals who are suffering from it (and potentially endangering their entourage) professional help. I fail to see how suggesting that this shooter is mentally ill would contribute to the shooting and killing of mentally ill patients—on the contrary, it should lead to a more adapted response to this situation, instead of laughing it off or throwing a potentially mentally ill person in jail, which will be counter-productive, if anything. This shooter is not being stigmatised at all, as i see it: attention is being drawn to a potential sufferer who is not receiving (adequate) care.

That said, "recklessness" is not by itself "mental illness", and from the emails it doesn't sound like this guy is suffering from clinical paranoia. He comes off more as a "jerk", which is not by itself actionable even in the bad old days when we did lock up the "crazy", until he acts like this that endanger others, and the criminal justice system sounds like the right venue to me (ignoring the minor detail that nowadays invoking the police is to be avoided at nearly all costs).

Hmmm, for that matter, if he appeared to be genuinely mentally ill, I don't think there's a way to deal with him without involving the police at some point or another.

I actually rather like that they pursued civil restitution. If he doesn't pay, I wonder if they'll put a lein on his house.

I wonder if this reply isn't coloured by the stigma GP was trying to point out. Recklessness and paranoia aren't in themselves mental illnesses. What portion of the general population experience paranoia or recklessness vs people with mental illness? I bet the rates aren't all that different, it's just that in extreme combination it earns the person a de facto badge of "mentally ill". That's usually shorthand for "I don't have enough information to understand this persons motives, so I'll label them as crazy and be done with it".

> I fail to see how suggesting that this shooter is mentally ill would contribute to the shooting and killing of mentally ill patients

It's possibly perpetuating the widespread belief that people with mental illness are predominantly violent. The _vast_ majority are not.

> This shooter is not being stigmatised at all, as i see it: attention is being drawn to a potential sufferer who is not receiving (adequate) care.

I guess the "mentally ill" label is a bit more compassionate than "violent criminal", but it also applies to millions of harmless people who don't necessarily benefit from being lumped into the same label.

Fair enough, i think i see what you mean.

But,

> It's possibly perpetuating the widespread belief that people with mental illness are predominantly violent. The _vast_ majority are not.

If that's what it seems like, i would like to correct that miscommunication. I most certainly do not espouse the view that "mentally ill" implies "probably" or even "perhaps violent". There may or may not be violent people who are also mentally ill, but i see it as orthogonal issues. People with mental illnesses should be taken care of and helped, not threatened with fines or jail time. Part of the problem is precisely that there is a stigma on coming forward and asking for help—i'm hoping that by pointing out that (e.g.) violence and mental illness are orthogonal issues might contribute infinitesimally to the decrease of stigma.

But i suspect we largely agree, and i also think that we are now significantly off-topic with regard to the original post :).

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