define that term for me, please
an argument i’ve seen cropping up in a lot of places is that it doesn’t really matter if we have any evidence to support a conclusion that jared loughner was mentally ill, because his act, in of itself, establishes mental illness. so violent acts are committed only by the mentally ill because to commit a violent act is a priori evidence of mental illness.
aside from being a stunning piece of circular logic - and overlooking the fact that there are a lot of people termed “mentally ill” by the state, the media, etc, who have never engaged in any kind of violent act, which is kind of a big thing to overlook - this argument simply doesn’t hang together. there are all kinds of people who commit acts of violence that aren’t categorized as “atrocities” and who thus aren’t regarded as mentally ill for carrying them out.
(trigger warning for graphic discussion of violence)
in my past work, i encountered innumerable people who had been subjected to unspeakable acts of violence by their husbands, boyfriends, or other romantic partners. the woman whose husband had shattered her femur with a crow bar (which takes a lot of repeated effort). the other woman whose husband had shattered her jaw and right cheek bone with a crowbar. yet another woman who was knocked unconscious by a blow to the head, after which her boyfriend deliberately drove over her arm with his SUV, crushing her wrist and forearm. none of those men were considered mentally ill - none of them were even in jail, because police officers considered this behavior to indicate mainly that the man loved too much and too passionately, or that the woman was exceptionally clumsy.
do you know how much force it takes to snap a femur across the shaft? how many times and with what incredible force he must have swung that iron crowbar at his wife’s body? what must have been going through his head to continue hitting her even after her thigh bone broke? i consider that a violent atrocity.
i also encountered a man with a severe traumatic brain injury, similar to the injury that congresswoman giffords sustained. he had ridden the bus home from his construction job and passed some men on the sidewalk between the bus stop and his house. they tackled him and threw him to the ground. he fought back, so they slammed his head into the concrete curb somewhere between 5 and 8 times. they also stomped on his knee sideways, blowing out the joint. at that point, they identified themselves as undercover police officers staking out the home of a suspected drug dealer and arrested the man for interfering with police activities. he was sent to jail and went two days before he received any medical treatment. those officers still serve on the police force and are regarded as loyal and brave public servants. the man has permanent hearing and vision loss as well as significant cognitive impairments.
then there’s war. someone who snuck up behind bin laden and shot him in the head, exactly the way loughner did, would be considered a national hero, applauded, celebrated. medal of honor recipients have typically killed a number of enemy combatants in extremely violent circumstances.
so - there are a lot of violent acts that we excuse or ignore, and even more that we applaud and view as important to our country and our safety. it is uncommon for us to view the perpetrators of any of these kinds of violent acts as mentally ill unless we consider the act to be one we do not like. it is not at all automatic in our culture, media, or government to condemn and ostracize someone who has committed a violent act. it’s about context, and if we mean “someone who committed an act of violence outside what is legally permitted and not as part of a war,” we should use the world we already have for that: “criminal.”
