Don't blame the crazies

 All through history the insane have been the favorite punching bag for many of society's ills. If someone did something truly horrible, then the person was most certainly insane. Not much has changed. Our 45th president drove this point home on more than one occasion, blaming domestic terrorist attacks on the mentally ill, despite constant assurances by mental health experts that such is not the case.

Without a doubt, mentally ill people can be violent and have committed terribly crimes. But such cases are rather rare when compared to similar crimes committed by people who are not mentally ill. But my point of this article isn't to argue that point. Rather, I want to discuss a defense I hear given for the mentally ill committing domestic terrorism. It goes something like this, "Only someone who is mentally ill would kill a bunch of people". They will qualify this with the words "random" and a location such as school, nightclub, restaurant, concert, etc. The logic, in their minds, is solid. Since shooting up a bunch of innocent random people is something only a crazy person would do, crazy people are responsible for doing it. QED. 

Of course, this opinion, whether someone is "crazy", is completely subjective. Many times the attacker takes their own life. Therefore, professionals are typically left with anecdotal data to try and make some sort of diagnosis with. But more often than not, the person isn't found to be insane. But that doesn't stop the nonexpert and the man on the street from making their own diagnosis. And, well, the President said it so it must be true.

They other thing we have to ask our selves is, are there any cases in which a person killing a bunch of other people is not considered the act of an insane person? What about a soldier following orders? What about a police officer who is being attacked? What about a woman who is the victim of a home invasion? "But that is different!", someone might object.  But why? Why is it different? Because they are being attacked? Because they are following orders? Because of the rules? Ultimately, the "reasons" are arbitrary. All the parties believe they are justified in doing what they do. That is, they have reasons, right or wrong, for committing the acts they do. Attaching the epitaph of "crazy" to one and not the other is merely one of convenience for us and nothing more.  It helps give us an easy answer to an act we would rather have a different answer to than the obvious one. You see, with the other acts we don't mind the answers. The soldier, policeman, and the woman are all doing noble things. Things we would like to think we would do in their shoes. Things that most of our society consider good. However, the terrorist is doing something we can all agree is horrific. Something no one likes to imagine themselves doing. So the last thing we want to admit is that we have the capability to do that very thing. If we can convince ourselves that the terrorist is something other than ourselves, i.e., crazy, then we can comfort ourselves with the thought that we could never be that person. But once we admit that they were perfectly in their right minds (and they most likely were), we are forced into a very uncomfortable reality. One we are desperate to avoid at all costs.