Tuesday, March 13, 2012

The News is So Depressing Lately

Usually ClinkShrink posts about shooters.  It's really not my area of expertise, but lately I've been struck by how many shootings there have been.  I'm wondering if this is a more common occurrence lately, if it's more publicized, or if I'm just paying more attention.

In the last few weeks, it feels like there is a constant flow of tragedies in the news:
There was the teenager who killed 3 students and wounded two others at a school in Ohio.
A Florida teacher killed the head of his ex-school after being fired .
A gunman walked into a psychiatric hospital in Pittsburgh and killed one person and wounded 6 others.
A U.S. soldier in Afghanistan killed 16 civilians in their homes, including young children.

I suppose the story of the teacher is different in that it was a murder-suicide where the shooter knew the victim and had a motive-- such tragedies do happen often and their news coverage is often limited to local news-- while the other shootings sound to have random, multiple victims, and no obvious motive.  I've actually never heard of a mass shooting in a psychiatric hospital. 

Any thoughts?  Maybe ClinkShrink has some insights.  

3 comments:

Sideways Shrink said...

I agree that all the shootings seem overwhelming. However, the soldier shooting the 3 families stands out to me as something that is possibly a result of the US Army violating it's own policies on the frequency and duration of combat deployments and the length of time between deployments to mentally recuperate from the effects of that deployment. Troops have been deployed over and over again and "stop lossed" with very little break between combat deployments.
It is a recipe for PTSD. With the draw down of troops, these young people are coming stateside to the VA, is woefully understaffed with treating retirees.
Why all those other people shot those people is just one of those weird temporal clumpings.
But there will be a lot more "random" shootings with undiagnosed and untreated vets returning from 10 years of war that no one in America wanted and I don't think we even have enough shrinks to treat if we were hire to try....(Sorry, Dinah, I know that is depressing, but maybe I'm wrong :) he he....

rob lindeman said...

I'm inclined to agree with Sideways about the Afghanistan shooting. BUT (as Pee Wee Herman said, "Everybody has a big 'but'") the truth is we have no idea whatsoever what happened to this man and why he did what he did. We may never know.

As for the frequency of shootings. Dinah, bad s*** is happening every day, everywhere. This is not so much a weird temporal clumping as it is a fortuitous clumping of news reportage.

Anonymous said...

So PTSD causes those afflicted to go on killing sprees, does it?