My thoughts about hearing people blame the Buffalo “child” killer’s (18 or not) agenda on his political leanings and beliefs and the behavior and values surrounding gifting or selling children guns.
It seems necessary to acknowledge that adults who give children guns may not understand enough that gifting or selling a gun (to a child at least) is modeling the acceptance of the purpose of the gun, such as it’s ok to harm or kill a being of any kind. Because isn’t that what guns are for? Guns given (easily purchased or acquired) in the absence of clearly defined boundaries, rules (personal history checks and understanding), education or supervision sends yet another slightly different message too; that is, one is ready and mature enough to use it. Definitely that will never be the case of a child. It can be argued differently perhaps in the different case of a young person entering the military-so practicing going to war - meaning, defending life, family or country.
Still it may be productive to dialogue and acknowledge that mental health science does exist, but is hardly ever adequately applied in situations and places where it it would make the most sense for it to be applied. Background checks because reliant on database - public data -for example, are not reliable because mental illness is predominantly invisible and experienced behind closed doors. The result of the current political response to tragedies involving murder that is so often repeated is ongoing loss of lives for so many people in so many ways. What if a real discussion can begin about how beliefs are created in the first place? Maybe if we truly understood the making of a murderer we could begin a useful process of healing and prevention.
Beliefs are part of our defense mechanism and are created from a foundation of emotional attachment. When emotional injuries occur in a relationship dynamic a person makes meaning out of the event. The meaning made will be entrenched over time if the same experiences get repeated, as they often do, based on the fact that meaning made from the first relationship experience is the same filter that will be used when interpreting events in next relationship experience. If there is nobody there to help or respond differently to negate the themes of trust that have formed (to say they are not always true) mental illness - distortion - grows. It becomes an “all or nothing” inflexible thinking style and can become a belief system.
So trying to figure out who or what politics Payton Gendron followed and too singularly placing blame, ignores the root true cause. And it diverts society's focus away from actually helping children and people and preventing the repetition of tragedy and trauma.
People who are depressed have so many different kinds of irrational beliefs about themselves and others. Volition is lacking here too on a smaller level as someone who has been deemed -Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity. Is the focus too exclusively placed on the judgement and not enough on the creation of the crime? The illogical process of getting caught up in the politics of the murder seems like an enormous waste of time.
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