FSU Shooter Developed Severe Mental Disorder
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The FSU shooter, Myron May, was convinced he was being watched by the government when he opened fire at Florida State University’s library, police say. Three weeks earlier, the 31-year-old FSU alum had returned to the area from New Mexico where he worked as a rookie prosecutor and was well-liked. He planned to take the Florida state bar exam and open his own practice, a family friend tells NBC News, but May was “in a state of crisis,” police say.
In various videos and a detailed journal, “he expressed fears of being targeted.” Shortly before the shooting, he appeared on a Facebook group for people who believe they are victims of mind control. “Has anyone here ever been encouraged by your handler to kill with a promise of freedom?” he wrote on Nov. 14.
He also posted links to sites that claimed the government could read minds, the AP reports. Back in New Mexico, a former girlfriend told police May had developed “a severe mental disorder” and believed authorities had put cameras in his car and home. Yet May’s cousin, a middle-school teacher, saw no sign of a disturbed mind when May returned to Florida. In fact, he asked May to speak to his class. “He said, I can’t do it this week, maybe after Thanksgiving.'” Meanwhile, an acquaintance tells ABC News that May sent a message to eight people saying they would each receive a package from him. “What did he send everyone? Was it a manifesto? Was it a message? I don’t know,” the acquaintance says. “I’m just as curious as everyone else.” The AP reports one such package has been delivered.
Props to Newser.
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As I have said before, it’s not a gun problem, it is a mental health problem. You have to be crazy to do these things, plain and simple. But we as a nation have abdicated our responsibility to protect ourselves by intervening with those mentally ill persons before they endanger themselves and others.
“(A)_former girlfriend told police May had developed “a severe mental disorder”.” ……
It’s a gun problem Stacey. The FSU case is relatively isolated, as the vast majority of mass shooters made choices to do so, and weren’t influenced by any significant mental disease or defect. It’s time America stopped dancing around the issue of guns and stop selling them to anyone who can walk to the counter and hand over the money. As a former lifetime law enforcement officer I can tell you that criminality and crazy are not synonymous. It’s about choice and opportunity.
I’m sorry Mike, I can’t agree. This has always been a nation firearms, from the beginning. I am sure that proportionately there have been more Americans holding firearms than even today. But we never had these episodes of irrational violence until very recently. The psyche of the nation has changed.
When I was a kid we all played cowboys and Indians, or army, or even G-men & mobsters and cops and robbers. But we didn’t have these random acts of real violence.
We did have state mental hospital facilities though. They’re all gone now, people mainstreamed into the community…. and then lost in the crowds. Police involvement/incarceration are the only remaining alternative. But as you know, police are trained to keep the peace, not in mental health. This often results in tragic outcomes.
I’ll be the first to admit that this all coincided with the emergence of the drug culture, and the street crime that attends that, and the collapse of the middle class, collapse of the financial system, the suddenly homeless hordes, and the unemployed and under employed watching their way of life disappear, of college graduates and senior citizens with crushing loads of debt they will never escape, and the emergence of an oligarchy that continues to shred the social safety net – while at the same time deploying a militarized policing force. And the whole thing set in the post 9/11 fear mongering promulgated by political and theological leaders controlling the people for their own gains.
But aren’t these the very things that back people into inescapable corners, depress and oppress people who…. now have nowhere to turn for help? The system isn’t broke, it isn’t there!
Is it tragic that these people turn to firearms, absolutely. But is it not equally as tragic that there is no one to intervene?
I’m sorry Mike, but look at how many of these do have direct connections to mental health issues, how many who had histories, or at least indications – their internet postings and blogs for example, sudden changes in behaviors, even friends going …. to the police….. Lets see, this one, the California, the batman in Colorado, the Connecticut school, the tower shooter in Texas who didn’t want to be deployed to Iraq to start with….
Looking from your perspective Mike, how would you have a legitimate prospective gun buyer document his mental stability? Keep in mind that to be effective in your scenario they would have to somehow accurately predict their capacity for the next 10, 30, 60 years or more that many people keep a firearm…. I still have the first ones I bought when I was 10 – and I expect my children will inherit them!
And even if another firearm was never made legally available in the US, there would be a black market availability for a long, long time.
It’s not the gun laws that need to be changed, it is the attitude of entitlement, of “gangsta”, of vigilantism, of don’t rat, of us against the cops/government persecution, of…(insert your particular insecurity, mania, cause or phobia here) And the societal perspective that we are not responsible for one another’s well being.
It’s about mental health Mike.
Re: Mental health of Newtown shooter Adam Lanza, and the lack of a competent mental health system.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/new-report-on-adam-lanza-parental-denial-breakdowns-missed-opportunities/ar-BBf46Or
Well since the kid is dead I doubt even MSN, a doubtless scholarly and peer reviewed resource, could make an accurate diagnosis of his mental state at the time of the shooting, but I don’t argue this was one sick fuck, but I do have to ask how he managed to get his hands on automatic rifles. Wait. I know. It was his loving mom, who, if wasn’t allowed to own such weapons of war, would be alive today and her nutty son might be as well. It’s about the guns.
It’s about guns.
So all those European countries with strict gun laws that have comparatively few deaths and injuries related to firearms have fewer mental health problems Stacey? Nonsense. It’s about guns and you gunners can talk and talk until your heart’s content about how guns don’t kill people, blah, blah and blah, but you can’t escape the math. Countries with strict gun laws have remarkably fewer gun involved incidents. The United States, with less than 5 percent of the world’s population, has about 35-50 percent of the world’s civilian-owned guns, according to a 2007 report by the Swiss-based Small Arms Survey. It ranks number one in firearms per capita. The U.S. also has the highest homicide-by-firearm rate among the world’s most developed nations (OECD), and the highest rate of suicide by firearm, as well as the highest number of firearms related accident and incident. As to us being a “nation of firearms” you are right there, and we are a nation of violence as a result. Please don’t spout the NRA talking points Stacey. I’ve heard them all and they make no more sense now than they did when first crafted by gun manufacturers and their lobbyists.
I shan’t continue this discussion as my perspective is apparently not welcome. I am not now nor have I been since I was 11,an NRA member or supporter. (well before 1977 when NRA changed from being about about sportsmanship, safety and marksmanship, to being about politics http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-nras-true-believers-converted-a-marksmanship-group-into-a-mighty-gun-lobby/2013/01/12/51c62288-59b9-11e2-88d0-c4cf65c3ad15_story.html)
Who said your perspective wasn’t welcome? We just have different perspectives that’s all.
I am tired beyond of all these school shootings. We need to do something about guns in the hands of the mentally ill but what is it. Same conversation after every single incident and still nothing gets done.
The only way to stop school shootings is to stop the proliferation of guns period. We are unable to determine who is mentally ill at gun shows and pawn shops but if people weren’t allowed to buy guns, much less carry them, such violence would slowly come to an end. The United States has gone from the wild, wild west, to the wild, wild west in less than 150 years. We should follow the lead of more civilized nations and ban fucking guns, except those used for hunting, and even then extensive background investigations should be required. Under no circumstances should private citizens be allowed to buy assault rifles and other weapons of war.