Specifically, dissension about the massacre and the oft-trotted out "mental illness" speculation.
The first dissension belongs to a Black guy on my Twitter feed. He pointed out that the whole "mental illness" thing only ever gets thrown out about white mass murderers. He wonders why white people never get "terrorist" thrown at them, as pretty much all Muslim killers do. He also points out that 12 dead is a typical weekend in Chicago, but that's never mental illness, just "N***ers and their rap music!"
The second dissenting voice is mine.
Can we please stop reflexively attaching my disease to every murderer out there? PLEASE?
Elaboration over the orange gnocchi:
I'm mentally ill. I am currently under treatment, and have been for a number of years. At the moment, I'm perfectly fine. (Prozac works wonders for me.)
But during the 20 years I went undiagnosed, the only person I ever attempted to kill was myself.
Now, I understand that "mental illness" is a catch-all. I have severe clinical depression. I don't have bipolar, or paranoid schizophrenia, or any number of various mental illnesses; many of which have far different symptoms than depression. Is it possible this guy has one of those? Sure. Do we know that for a fact? Nope.
Do I believe that a perfectly sane, far-saner-than-I, person is capable of going on a shooting spree in a movie theater? HELL yes. There are evil motherfuckers in the world, and our completely off-the-rails culture doesn't help. Sometimes we liberals like to make excuses, and show compassion. Sometimes, it's justified. But sometimes, it isn't, and we don't know what the case here is yet.
But the reflexive appeal to "mental illness" has another very bad side effect. Several comments here have, rightly, pointed out that mental illness has a stigma in our society, and people resist treatment partially because of the stigma. All true.
Uhm. HELLO? You think getting lumped in with every shit-for-brains with a gun HELPS the stigma? Fuck. I'm open about my illness--but I shut up about it for a while after Virginia Tech. If I had been diagnosed around the time of Columbine, I would've clamped my lips tight about it. Stigma? Yeah. Let people think you might come into work firing shots all over the place--that'll help the stigma.
If it turns out this guy is mentally ill, and not just an evil shitstain on the planet--well, then my stigma won't be getting better any time soon. However, can we wait until we get some actual evidence for that before we start spouting on it? I'd rather keep the Prozac dosage where it is, thanks.