Did Factors Other than Mental Illness Inspire Loughner

It seems that many people want to believe that Jared Loughner was mentally ill. While his now infamous mugshot, youtube videos, myspace pages do not help the case for calling him sane- there is more to this story than meets the eye.

I saw this post at roissy- Shades Of George Sodini and followed up to the linked WSJ article- Postings of a Troubled Mind

Last May 9, at two in the morning, Jared Lee Loughner typed a question to a group of about 50 online gamers located around the world: “Does anyone have aggression 24/7?” He was back at his keyboard the following night. “If you went to prison right now…What would you be thinking?”

He definitely had an idea of what he was going to do and shows awareness of the consequences of those actions.

The online-forum messages exhibit a growing frustration that, at 22 years of age, Mr. Loughner couldn’t land a minimum-wage job and was spurned by women. By May 15, he wrote, he hadn’t had a paycheck in six months. A month later, he wrote that he had submitted 65 applications, yet “no interview.”

Arizona does have a very bad job market right now.

Mr. Loughner had a history of asking provocative questions. In early high school, he asked unusual questions that were innocent, such as one time when he asked a friend about the purpose of human toes, recalls Joseph Headlee, a former high-school classmate. His recent online postings are more disturbing. On April 24, he asked: “Would you hit a Handy Cap Child/ Adult?” On May 20 at 12:03 a.m., he remarked: “I bet your hungry….Because i know how to cut a body open and eat you for more then a week. ;-)”

Ok, so he is weird, but not that weird. He can think logically, even if it is macabre.

Later that day, he posted a rant titled “Why Rape,” which said women in college enjoyed being raped. “There are Rape victims that are under the influence of a substance. The drinking is leading them to rape. The loneliness will bring you to depression. Being alone for a very long time will inevitably lead you to rape.”

No comments.. but readers should comment on that. Here is a link to an interview with his ex-girlfriend.

Anger increasingly permeated his postings. On May 5, he started a thread titled “Talk, Talk, Talking about Rejection.” He solicited stories of rejection by the opposite sex. The next day he wrote, “Its funny…when..they say lets go on a date about 3 times..and they dont….go…” Three days later, he wrote, “Its funny when your 60 wondering……what happen at 21.”

This is not the thought process of someone with severe mental illness. He had recognized the futility of his life and environment.

The following night, he titled a thread: “If you went to prison right now…..What would you be thinking?” He added, “Just curious?” After others responded that they would do everything they could to avoid going to prison, including commit suicide, Mr. Loughner said, “Let’s say you are in the cell for life…For nothing.” A few minutes later he added, “21…going to college…no workplace.”

He reasoned that a life behind bars was not much worser than the one outside them.

On June 3 at 12:14 a.m. Mr. Loughner described one confrontation with Mr. McGahee, writing to his fellow gamers that he had asked the teacher: “Are you just getting a pay check for brainwashing?” as well as questioning if the class was a “scam” and asking, “can you tell me how to Deny math?”

After reading all these comments it hard to escape the feeling that this guy, though unbalanced, was not stupid.

The much more troublesome question is- Is this the beginning of a trend? I don’t know..

Comments?

Update: Here is another news article- Exclusive: Loughner Friend Explains Alleged Gunman’s Grudge Against Giffords

But Loughner did, according to Tierney, believe that government is “fucking us over.”

As Loughner and Tierney grew closer, Tierney got used to spending the first ten minutes or so of every day together arguing with Loughner’s “nihilist” view of the world. “By the time he was 19 or 20, he was really fascinated with semantics and how the world is really nothing—illusion,” Tierney says. Once, Tierney recalls, Loughner told him, “I’m pretty sure I’ve come to the conclusion that words mean nothing.” Loughner would also tell Tierney and his friends that life “means nothing,” and they’d reply, “If it means nothing, what you’re saying means nothing.”