Rich Lowry notes a statistic on "rampage killings" and one doctor's take on the recent rise of such events: "According to an extensive survey in the New York Times a few years ago, about half of rampage killings are committed by mentally ill people, a much higher percentage than the roughly five percent that commit all murders. Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, president of the Virginia-based Treatment Advocacy Center, believes there has been a rise in such killings in the past 20 years, which coincides with the period when we have dumped many severely mental ill people out into society without treating them."
Charles Krauthammer: "In a previous age, such a troubled soul might have found himself at the state mental hospital rather than a state university. But in a trade-off that a decent and tolerant society makes with open eyes, we allow freedom from straitjackets to those on the psychic edge, knowing that such tolerance runs very rare but very terrible risk."
Turns out Charles Whitman had a brain tumor that may have affected his mental state.
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I can't reply in a new post but on a certain gut level, I'm relieved that Whitman's exploits have been exceeded.
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