Gun therapy hits unexpected snag

[james_davis_nicoll]

[Chris Kyle] returned home to become a best-selling author and a mentor to other veterans, sometimes taking them shooting at a gun range near his Texas home as a kind of therapy to salve battlefield scars, friends said. One such veteran was Eddie Ray Routh, a 25-year-old Marine who had served tours in Iraq and Haiti.

But on Saturday, far from a war zone, Mr. Routh turned on Mr. Kyle, 38, and a second man, Chad Littlefield, 35, shortly after they arrived at an exclusive shooting range near Glen Rose, Tex., about 50 miles southwest of Fort Worth, law enforcement authorities said Sunday. The officials said that for reasons that were still unclear, Mr. Routh shot and killed both men with a semiautomatic handgun before fleeing in a pickup truck belonging to Mr. Kyle.

Comments

[snippy]

Given what we know about associating behavior with triggers, why would anyone ever think that associating shooting (or other intentional violence) with PTSD is a good idea? Target practice is for when you're calm and happy, not as therapy for strong negative emotions.

[james_davis_nicoll]

My guess is for Kyle it wasn't a trigger and he may not have realized it was for others. Or perhaps he thought by confronting triggers they could be overcome.