Rampage killer Chris Harper-Mercer was an Aspie

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He's not returning his calls at the moment.

God doesn't want to get involved in this crap. He likes to look down upon us from his perch in the sky--and laugh.

Well, this story still has legs...

More data mining from WSJ.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/accused-ore ... 1444249903

I supposed this has gone OT, so perhaps it should be a new thread? But in the meantime, I just wanted to address this answer:

Well, the way I see it is that although I don't have an answer to that question, that doesn't mean the answer must come down to magic (i.e. a god/immortal being). How many times throughout history were happenings put down to a god/gods because they couldn't yet be explained, but then later were in fact explained scientifically?

For instance, at various times and in various cultures, epilepsy has been put down to demons, infertility was due to sin and blizzards happened randomly without warning as a punishment. Today, we have scientific explanations for these things.

The fact that we don't have all the answers yet doesn't mean there are no answers except magical ones. It just means we don't have all the answers yet.

Now, I can't say with authority that the particular question above will be answered one day scientifically; anything is possible - maybe there is an invisible in-control being or beings. What I can say is that self-awareness would seem to be a survival-positive trait, particularly in a creature whose intellect is its defining evolutionary feature (or primary one, anyway), and that beyond the mixed bag that is the genetics of the many, many generations before any given individual, there are other things to affect/shape an eventual "personality" such as personal experience, disease/illness/chronic/genetic conditions, the culture one lives in, the family environment lives in, experience of natural disaster, and on and on. These all produce extreme variations in "personality." To me that is far more feasible than "I can't explain it yet, therefore an invisible immortal being that defies the laws of physics, indeed any and all scientific laws, waved its hand invisibly over my mother's uterus and breathed a personality into me. If it hadn't, I would have been born without a personality."

Again, these are just my views. I'm not trying to convince anybody, I have no reason to; religion can be a comfort and again, I'm not the final authority, I could be wrong. I'm just explaining why I feel as I do and how unbelievable religion seems to me. It just doesn't make sense to me, never has. It's interesting, it can be beautiful, the stories can be very engaging and make a point but logic simply doesn't allow me to "believe."

I don't believe that a god or demon "made" me autistic. I believe genetic variation, which is observable, did that.

^ I think I wouldn't have developed a distaste for religion if my mother, and others, didn't use it as a weapon or weapon of mass destruction. Unfortunately, the damage's been done.

I too have wondered about this conundrum for decades. What I think happened is that humans developed language. Words for every little thing. Wherever there are a group of us language just springs into being... out of nothing. This happened in Nicaragua a while back when deaf children were brought from around the country to be taught how to sign. But the teachers arrived many days late, and ther weren't enough of them... and then it turned out that the kids had already begun a sign language that was different than all other sign languages... and it is still going on to this day. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/21/scien ... ructs.html Also, feral children, children who as toddlers are not brought up by adults who speak a language, NEVER learn to speak, and they act and respond to the world totally differently than the rest of us. And finally there is Helen Keller, who started to learn words as a toddler, and then lost her hearing and her sight, only to learn sign many years later. When she was asked what life was like when she didn't have words, she said, "It was darkness."

Then written language evolved, and so humans were able to learn words for things, events, philosophies, from previous generations. Then printing came along, and that knowledge really spread out to the masses. Now we have the www.

So the ghost in the machine... our own separate identity, is the constant stream of words that is going on inside our heads. /rant

I'm not giving up my personal information and becoming a subscriber just to read another journalist's take on what we already know.

As a mother of a 10 yr old Aspie male, these shootings have been deeply disturbing to me. James Holmes, Adam Lanza and now this guy. I know there were others before. I remember after the Newtown shootings a friend called me to inform me that the shooter had Aspergers. Then proceeded to ask me questions about my son, such as "does he have friends?", to which I answered no, and then she went on and on. I don't think she meant to upset me, but by the end of the conversation I was in tears. I have become quite obsessed myself now with following the backgrounds of all of these killers to make sure I don't make the same mistakes with my son. However, I don't know how I can help him to make friends when he has absolutely no desire.

One thing for sure is I have 0 interest in guns, we do not have a gun in our home and you can believe that we never will. I don't know how I can possibly monitor his behavior for the rest of his life though, so in some ways, I feel that it is not really the parent's fault except that they should have used more common sense. I don't know, but I am just really upset about these shootings. I don't see any violent tendencies in my son, but as he gets older, I wonder how he will feel if he doesn't have a girlfriend or a job? This frightens me.........

I thin it seems a bit irrational to assume your son is going to grow upi to kill tons of people. Maybe you have OCD and seriously intrusive thoughts or some paranoia? I have OCD too but its ok.

Anyway I thought it was kind of interesting how this Mercer guy would get so pissed off about his neighbors and the sounds. I relate in a few ways to that, except I learned to cope with it somewhat. But before we had a very insane neighbor who had some psychological problems and drank and was a chain smoker. He was extremely loud above us and a real jerk. I did begin to hate him and once had a dream I shot him, but then I realized it was wrong and screwed up. What was funny is one day he came outside with a gun and was showing it off to me like he was cool. That made me nervous somewhat but he moved about 3 days later. He was not being threatening either, just showing his "cool gun" or something.

But the whole sounds, chain smokers, and looking all around, and being really shy and avoiding people I can relate to. But I never wanted to murder anyone or go shoot people who were not affecting my life in a school. I also never had a classroom where I felt like I wanted to kill everyone in it.

So if you are on the ASD spectrum you should not be afraid you will one day kill people. And if you have friends with ASD or aspergers stop assuming things. The media just wants to sensationalize all things and now create sme gun ban for all ASD or autistic people. They want to discriminate on who can and canot own guns now when aspergers is not a violent illness, but a few guys claimed they had it and now the media is trying to politicize it all.

Most rampage shooters are not autistic at all and are coherent. They are just evil. An autistic kid who is evil will be an evil kid with autism. It is not autism that makes hm be evil. People always use their conditions to justify evil all the time. I am sure Adam Lanza who killed the children at Sandy Hook had a lot more than aspergers and he was also just a general all around anti-social ahole and just an evil son of a b---.

Also most ASD people WANT FRIENDS!! ! They want them!! ! Its not that they "dont have an interest" its that "they cant do it! they dont know how and its tough! and its so stressful its better to just not try or feel the negative energy and brain pressure from the stress." It can be helped though with encouragement.

Maybe Mercer would have benefited to live in a house and not an apartment with annoying neighbors but he is still just a jerk.

I have also heard he was into the occult and some black magic spiritual beliefs. I am not sure if this is true but that can also contribute to violence.

and so he was also mixed race, seemed to live alone with his mother and so many other things...what else do we want to use? ah, sorry, the media can only use the Asperger's as an excuse to get more attention, the others they couldn't because then, all he#$%#$ would really break loose...ignore them...the guy was just an idiot, that's it...nothing else matters

PS thank the crazy parents out there giving Asperger's and autism a bad name in order to get sympathy from people for this...thanks to them, the media is buying it

Fortunately, I have not seen much focus on Asperger's in news articles about Chris Haper-Mercer. The worst I saw was this quote: "mass killer Mercer and his family owned 13 guns legally . . . which he brought into the school during the massacre, despite allegedly having Asperger's Syndrome" (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z3nYypKEVb). This implies that Aspies should not be allowed to own guns, which is ignorant. Unfortunately, there were at least four alleged mass shooters within the past three years where there were indications of an ASD: Chrisopher Krumm (he used a bow and arrow), Elliot Rodgers, Adam Lanza, and Chris Harper-Mercer. I hope this doesn't become a pattern. We have enough PR troubles already, like eye contact.

Thanks MudoMan-

I have never been diagnosed with OCD, but I do feel I have shades of it from time to time. This may be why I hyperfocus on all of these crazy shootings and want to know everything about them so that I can make sure my son doesn't turn out to be one of them.....But you are right, there is no indication whatsoever that my son has any violent streak in him at all. I agree with you that the media for some reason is jumping all over this. I agree too in that these shooters were into some evil things before the shootings. I don't want the autistic community to continue getting a bad rap for this. It is not fair.

Thanks for your response!

I googled Harper-Mercer and the article came up. I didn't have to give any information. Using a mobile if that makes a difference.

I don't equate Aspie with mass-murderer--ever.

Most mass-murderers have not been Aspies.

Usually, Aspies are gentle souls. They usually are philosophical/rational in outlook. They get frustrated, like NT's get frustrated, with things such as not having a girlfriend.

It is just not part of the disorder to be violent.

There's something much more going on with these supposed Aspies than Asperger's Syndrome.

I think anyone who shoots up a school is a psychopath to begin with. I wonder if it can come and go. I might be one of those people who can become one based on environmental factors but the reason why I have not become one is because my parents made sure there were no guns and that my grandfather's gun was locked up. They thought I would be one of those school shooters so they made sure they were locked up and they never had any fire arm around. We had an animal that was giving me a lot of anxiety and it was making my OCD flare up because he wouldn't quit pissing in the house and the fact he would do it on purpose because he would wait until he was inside to take a piss. I started to get violent thoughts of harming him and torturing him and I even wanted to kill him. One day he was hit a by a car and died so i never got that far. I was saved. But I may have become a psychopath if that dog didn't die because I may have given into my compulsions and kill that poor thing. But then I wouldn't be a psychopath anymore because I wouldn't be in that situation where I go crazy and become one and then it goes away when I am removed from that environment so I wonder if it can come and go for some people. I think I have some psychopathic characteristics but I had learn to compensate. For one I never had any remorse and never understood it. Most kids feel remorse when they do something wrong and then feel bad about it but not me. I had no remorse when I took a pack of gum from the store when I was six or seven, no remorse when I stole two prizes from the speech room and was forced to return them, had no remorse when I would sometimes take toys home from school and mom always made me bring them back, had no remorse when I accidentally broke a girl's arm at age six. I didn't know when to stop teasing and didn't seem to care how others were reacting. I don't seem to feel enough emotion for others so I must have psychopathic traits but not enough for me to actually do evil things or wanting to hurt people. But I bet if I get pushed far enough, I might turn into one like I would have with our pet I hated. I was literally going crazy with that puppy and when he died, I was calmer so my daily meltdowns were gone because I was calmer now.

Do you feel remorse now or guilt or shame when you do something wrong?

The fact you are debating all of this in your head shows you are not and never were a psychopath and probably never will be one.

Psychopathy in my opinion is not a mental disorder. It is a choice to be evil and selfish and the pleasure of harming people and control. A lot of humans have this but to turn into one it seems that it takes a few factors but the majority of people are not psychopaths.

If you did hurt your dog I am sure you would feel guilt over it. You may say no, but I doubt it. You are worried about it. It is just OCD kicking in with instrusive thoughts.