opinions influenced by the media?

[jaguar]

I think that's what ultimately separates the sane people from the insane ones. We realize that life is full of tasty sandwiches. They only see the empty wrappers.

The next plato no doubt

I submitted a 3-page reply explaining that current psychoanalyis doesn't think that you could turn into a _planning_ (serial) killer, like the Columbine ones, without being afflicted by _specific_ extroverted violent psychopathic derangements.

The quesiton then becmoes the cause for thsoe disorders - i'd argue when you cna, and often do have a genetic disposition to suffering from a serious mental disorder (a murky and relatively new science in itslef - genetics and mental states, not to mention definion and diagnosing metal disorders well, thats why we have huge broad things like schizophrenia) I'd say it can be easily brought on by what rusotto is talking about.

[russotto]

Jag: Social services are a bandaid. At best, they can help someone tolerate the intolerable for a few more years. Second best, they can detect the ones who break before they suicide or get homicidal -- but by that time they ARE broken.

Xugumad: True, not everyone who goes through hell at school turns homicidal. But to pass it off on mental illness is to avoid the issue. Suicide and self-mutilation are supposed to be the result of mental illness as well. But what caused the mental illness? Again, my answer is "torture". Some of the tortured are better able to withstand it than others. Most who break are predisposed to break in a self-destructive way rather than a homicidal way. But it's a big country, and there's a lot of torture going on, so now and then you get one who breaks the wrong way. And even if it is a specific mental illness (unrelated to the toture), that hardly implicates the media.

As for the wrapper analogy: some people only GET the empty wrappers. Then we call 'em crazy for complaining.

[jaguar]

Jag: Social services are a bandaid. At best, they can help someone tolerate the intolerable for a few more years. Second best, they can detect the ones who break before they suicide or get homicidal -- but by that time they ARE broken.

DEbateable, if intergrated with the school they can alleviate allot of problems, give the person someone to talk to and at worst pick them up before they shoot the place up.

Few more years? High school/Junious HIgh/Collage don't go on forever.