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Interesting: a mutation in a single gene whose product is responsible for degrading neurotransmitters seems to be a strong predictor of psychopathy and violent criminal behavior.

There's often a knee-jerk reaction to these types of studies because they (allegedly) pave the way for the "my genes made me do it" defense in court, but from a legal standpoint, that is no weaker or stronger than the "a bad environment/abusive upbringing made me do it" which has become standard. If anything, studies like this, while acknowledging environmental triggers, focus the blame and responsibility more on the individual criminal than on society.

1 posted on 03/11/2015 5:01:04 AM PDT by ek_hornbeck
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To: ek_hornbeck
I don't know. This country had a murder rate in 1900 around 1 or so per 100,000. It's been over 9/100,000 at times since then, and is about 4.5/100,000 now.

Doesn't that say environment has a strong influence?

2 posted on 03/11/2015 5:13:11 AM PDT by Ken H (DILLIGAF)
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To: ek_hornbeck

Are people responsible for their actions?

various factors influence attitudes. However, people CHOOSE their actions.

As someone once said, “Evil thoughts are like birds. You cannot stop them flying over your head, but you can stop them from nesting in your hair.”

Thoughts can lead to attitudes which then greatly influence actions.


3 posted on 03/11/2015 5:13:13 AM PDT by BwanaNdege
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To: ek_hornbeck

Or you could say people’s behavior and lifestyle causes changes within the brain.


4 posted on 03/11/2015 5:15:36 AM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: ek_hornbeck

I think there is a good possibility that killers are born as well. I was reading a story yesterday about a couple whose kid is extremely violent, is obsessed with knives, bleeding and stabbing..Here you can read it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2988661/He-cut-tops-fingers-just-blood-Parents-adopted-son-7-meth-addict-convinced-kill-soon-knife-obsession.html


5 posted on 03/11/2015 5:16:06 AM PDT by GrandJediMasterYoda (She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running like a watercolor in the rain)
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To: ek_hornbeck

Well, since no one is a murderer until they murder someone, I’d say there is a strong case for “murderers are made”.


6 posted on 03/11/2015 5:20:48 AM PDT by WayneS (Barack Obama makes Neville Chamberlin look like George Patton.)
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To: ek_hornbeck

Violent men and women are often easily led.


7 posted on 03/11/2015 5:23:31 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks ("If he were working for the other side, what would he be doing differently ?")
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To: ek_hornbeck

The worst part about finding something like this to be true, is that Liberals will scream that we must stop treating these poor people as criminals and accept them as they are, after all “they were born that way!”

Hell, we already know this to be true in serial killers - the studies have shown that they started with harming, maiming, and then killing small animals, before finally moving on to hurting and killing humans: Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy, etc...!


10 posted on 03/11/2015 5:29:03 AM PDT by ExTxMarine (Public sector unions: A & B agreeing on a contract to screw C!)
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To: ek_hornbeck


12 posted on 03/11/2015 5:40:10 AM PDT by JoeProBono (SOME IMAGES MAY BE DISTURBING VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED;-{)
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To: ek_hornbeck
the line between murder and justifiable homicide can be thin

If I was stuck in a situation where I was forced to live in a crime ridden ghetto I would certainly be packing(legally or not) and it would be up to the cops and the courts to determine if anyone I might kill was murder or self defense.

we name things as well fed people who think we are in a new golden age...

here is a few words from Sultan Knish's Blog:

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-ages-of-purim.html

The illusion of history is that every age brings with it the end of history, a new age whose awesome achievements break with the past and usher in a boundless future. And then the walls come crashing down and the new era of history ends up buried under the rubble of time.

History never ends. That is the lesson of the Holocaust, of Purim and of countless other horrifying intrusions of the old into the new. The shining new era that begins with grand public spectacles and displays of the power and might of an empire, ends with corpses and men and women fighting and running for their lives.

13 posted on 03/11/2015 5:41:44 AM PDT by Vaquero (Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: ek_hornbeck

They are born.
The first man born of a woman was a murderer. (Cain)


15 posted on 03/11/2015 5:53:23 AM PDT by right way right
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To: ek_hornbeck

Related topic, for anyone interested in criminality, Stanton Samenow’s Inside the Criminal Mind. Samenow interviewed convicts in prison and based on what they told him he concluded that criminals commit crime because they want to.
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Criminal-Mind-Revised-Updated-ebook/dp/B006NKMM5C/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1426078803&sr=8-2&keywords=inside+the+criminal+mind+revised+and+updated+edition


19 posted on 03/11/2015 6:05:05 AM PDT by FrdmLvr ("WE ARE ALL OSAMA, 0BAMA!" al-Qaeda terrorists who breached the American compound in Benghazi)
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To: ek_hornbeck

The answer is yes.


22 posted on 03/11/2015 6:10:44 AM PDT by Phlap (REDNECK@LIBARTS.EDU)
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To: ek_hornbeck

If they are born that way (murderers) then we can’t expect them to change. It’s not their fault. It’s God’s fault for creating them that way.


23 posted on 03/11/2015 6:22:19 AM PDT by Awgie (truth is always stranger than fiction)
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To: ek_hornbeck

I’ve always believed that at least some people, and especially a lot of serial killers, are just flat out wired wrong. I think a medical study recently confirmed that. But the point is that some people just can’t be rehabbed or ‘fixed’. They are what they are.


28 posted on 03/11/2015 10:04:41 AM PDT by navyguy (The National Reset Button is pushed with the trigger finger.)
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To: ek_hornbeck

Serial killers have a well known profile; childhood abuse, playing with fire and torturing animals. Seems to strongly suggest serial killers are a product of nurture.


30 posted on 03/11/2015 11:33:12 AM PDT by IamConservative (If fighting fire with fire is a good idea, why do the pros use water?)
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To: ek_hornbeck

Adrian Raine - Fish oil

Spent a lot of time studying his work while working on my PhD


32 posted on 03/11/2015 11:53:33 AM PDT by KosmicKitty (Liberals claim to want to hear other views, but then are shocked to discover there are other views)
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To: ek_hornbeck
Made.

A person does not murder because of differences in his brain, his brain changes after he does murder.

34 posted on 03/11/2015 2:29:24 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear (Proud Infidel, Gun Nut, Religious Fanatic and Freedom Fiend)
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