Posted on 10/04/2015 3:26:21 AM PDT by tired&retired
A darker picture emerged Friday of slain Umpqua Community College shooter Chris Harper-Mercer as a deeply troubled, anti-religion, anti-government recluse obsessed with guns.
The U.S. Army discharged him just five weeks into basic training in 2008. Records indicate he graduated in 2009 from a high school catering to troubled and special-needs students. Multiple media sources reported Friday he left behind an angry note that is now in the hands of investigators.
The Los Angeles Times said Harper-Mercer's note was several pages long and talked about his anger and depression.
Sofia Camarena of Long Beach, California, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that she used to date Harper-Mercer's father."I used to change Chris' diapers when he was a baby," she said, upset after learning that he was the shooter in Thursday's massacre and was himself dead. "He was born with problems. He was hard to discipline. If you told him 'no,' he would scream like you had just hit him."
Camarena said that she had heard Harper-Mercer's mother was having "a hard time" with him and that he attended a special school.
Camarena said she last saw Harper-Mercer when he was 18 and she had asked him how he was doing. "He said he was doing good," said Camarena, whose son went on to marry Harper-Mercer's step-sister.
There are a number of indications that Harper-Mercer had mental health or behavioral issues. His screen name on some social media sites was "lithium love." Lithium is used as a psychiatric medication.
The U.S. Army confirmed Friday it discharged Harper-Mercer just halfway through his 10 weeks of basic training in 2008. "A review of Army records indicate that Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer was in service at Ft. Jackson, S.C., from 5 November-11 December 2008 but discharged for failing to meet the minimum administrative standards to serve in the U.S. Army," said Lt. Col. Ben Garrett.
Garrett declined to elaborate on what those "minimum administrative standards" were.
Amid the dysfunction, there were also hints of normalcy. Harper-Mercer found a home of sorts at the Umpqua Community College Theater Arts Department. He worked as a set designer for the department's spring musical. He took a theater class this summer, confirmed Dr. Rita Cavin, Umpqua Community College interim president, and was listed among the set crew for the department's fall production of Blithe Spirit.
Harper-Mercer was born in the United Kingdom, stepsister Carmen Nesnick told CBS Los Angeles, moving to the United States when he was very young. He grew up in the Torrance area. His parents, Ian Bernard Mercer and Laurel Margaret Harper, divorced in 2006.
The meds they are taking are causing much of the problem.
Meds given to people for such things as Diabetic nerve pain (peripheral neuropathy) are making a sizable portion of the users suicidal and worse.
Every other kid now is said to be autistic in one way or another and coddled and drugged and the drugs do more harm than good. ADD used to be cured by giving the kid a crack in the back of the head with the teachers pointer (this would realign the attention centers of the brain). Now they are drugged and made nuts.
Things were better in the 50s 60s. We have gone astray
We could probably agree that someone on Lithium should not have a firearm.
The problem is that once you throw the “mental health” constraint on gun ownership, you will find that shouting at the dog is deemed a mental health condition.
Add this shooter to the very long list of mass shooters who had no healthy father connection.
In fact, I’ll wager 100% have no healthy father connection. If we’re looking for predictors, there’s where to start looking.
The problem with that though is the commies think all non commies are mentally ill. Once you open that door.....
I heard his Brit dad went homo, got sued for grabbing the derriers of other men, or perhaps just one man.
One other difficulty is discriminating between the bat crap crazy liberals and the mentally ill. They resemble each other in many ways!!!
“If we talk about this clinically (e.g., leaving out the faith as a personal thing) “He” doesn’t win anything as far as I can tell. He is dead. There may be (likely) others who “win” something based on their issues and motives, but not him.”
Isn’t this how the Muslims get their mentally ill to become suicide bombers? The grandeur of the 72 virginians. s
A darker picture emerged Friday of slain Umpqua Community College shooter Chris Harper-Mercer as a deeply troubled, anti-religion, anti-government recluse obsessed with guns.
...
I skimmed the article and I couldn’t find any evidence to support that he was anti-government or obsessed with guns. Maybe I missed it.
“I did some checking and found out that the government DOES track patients on particular medications.”
My wife as an MD psychiatrist is approved to access this list. While its main use is to stop people from Dr. shopping for multiple prescriptions to prevent substance abuse, the main cause of the psychotic breaks is patients who do not take their meds.
A hyphenated last name? Poor kid. That often says a lot about the personality, beliefs and attitudes of one or both parents.
Worse case would be a tough childhood to recover from.
Guess he didn't.
“Why aren’t individuals who collect SSI disability payments because they are mentally ill included in the NICS data base?
The government has all the information that it needs to prevent the majority of bat**** crazy people from buying guns.
The question is why it doesn’t use this information. “
One real big problem is with vets. They don’t want to go for treatment out of fear that they will lose their guns. This is especially true of severe PTSD. I see both sides of this issue, especially in New York where this became a problem after they passed the last set of gun regulations.
All I am saying is that it is up to no one else but me to decide for me whether I mention a madman’s name or not.
I put forth an argument that said there we don’t have to succumb to others’ urgings about it, politically correct or otherwise.
Then the exchange devolved to “faith is personal” and isn’t PC and I responded with my last.
To your point, I think it doesn’t matter a hill of beans about the name in this case. Islam and its jihadists would still brainwash and poison weak minds to do their bidding. They don’t need a madman’s name to do that - only Allah.
Many of the people who were “committed” in the past when mental institutions were full actually got much better due to the advances in medications.
“Now, aberrant behavior continues”
Just look at the Democratic Party!!!
“Harper-Mercer”
“A hyphenated last name? Poor kid. That often says a lot about the personality, beliefs and attitudes of one or both parents.”
He was also mixed race as his mother was black with a dominant mother who was 9 years older than his father. His father left him and raised his stepchildren.... Ouch! He had a major identity crisis and esteem issues.
Guns tend to be the great ego equalizers for the low self esteem crowd. They think the power is in the gun without realizing that it can be within themselves.
Not buying it. When it comes to the body and much lesser the brain there have been advances. But there is a lot of crap being foisted upon the populace. To dope up every boy who fidgets in his seat in school with Ritalin is in my humble opinion, child abuse. Better to whack him on the rear
That's why I suggested a SSI disability payment hurdle. See a psychiatrist at the VA or privately -- no problem. But if someone is so impaired that he can't work, and needs to collect disability payments, I can see that there could be a problem. It's a much higher bar than just seeing a psychiatrist and taking an antidepressant.
I think politicians and gov't employees must be lazy, stupid or lazy and stupid. There are ways to prevent people who shouldn't buy firearms from buying firearms, while not preventing any people who shouldn't be prevented from buying firearms. In many of these cases it looks like the victims as taxpayers were paying for the guns and the ammo that was used to murder them.
Of course I would suggest there would need to be a system with an appeals process. If someone's psychiatrist is willing to certify that a SSI recipient is so impaired that he needs to collect disability payments, but still presents no danger to himself or anyone else, fine. Take him off the prohibited list, or don't put him on the list in the first place.
I agree 100% with you.
Suppressing symptoms of normal psychological development is dangerous and much different than treating severe mental illness.
I think New York state lowers the bar because New York doesn't want to do what it says it wants to do. It's not about preventing truly dangerous individuals from buying guns. Cuomo really does want to take everyone's guns away! (Except his own bodyguards' guns, of course!)
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