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.

[michaelgr.livejournal.com]

Obviously the therapy didn't work because they didn't use enough guns. More guns would have done the job.

[kuangning]

Completely, utterly unexpected. Who could possibly have foretold that putting semi-automatic weapons in the hands of psychologically disturbed people could lead to such tragedy?

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

I know I'm shocked, just like I was shocked by that modal Analog reader in Alabama shooting a bus driver to kidnap an autistic kid for his Farnham's Freehold fantasies. So very shocked.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

People elsewhere on the flist have reported that physical activity requiring high dexterity and mental focus helped them cope with PTSD (horse riding, martial arts) so it's not an obviously stupid decision. It would probably be ill-advised if there were existing signs of violent impulses, but that can be very hard to anticipate.

(I get a sense here of LOLing about tragic deaths, and assumptions that mentally ill people must be violent, that don't become sympathetic just because the victims may or may not have been right-wing)

[http://users.livejournal.com/krin_o_o_/]

I am a bit skeptical of the answer to psychological disorders caused by traumatic events being to repeat elements of those events with the addition of alcohol and ready access to firearms.

- Krin

[kaffy_r]

I am profoundly pro-gun control and anti-broad public use of guns. I grew up in Canada and moved to the States, a process that has only made my stance stronger.

But all I can think in this case is of the tragedy of two lives lost, one of them a man who was trying to help another profoundly troubled man, the other someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

All of them carried and used guns. All of them believed in guns. I could, if two of them were still alive, debate with them over whether their belief in and use of guns in any situation was correct in general or for this specific case and/or occasion.

I can't do that now. Two of them are dead. I will mourn them. I will fight the NRA via petition and money when I can. But I will not - as angry as I am - do more, while talking about this specific occasion, than mourn the fact that two men are dead, and the one who killed them is forever wounded.