Don't Blame the Asperger's

I'm sure you've heard by now about the tragic killings last weekend. It's been all over the news and has been making the rounds around the internet. It's hard to avoid hearing about it. I will not be using the killer's name or picture, because I don't believe that mass murderers should be given that type of attention.

So, why am I writing about a killer if I don't think killers should get attention? It's because of the reports that he may have been an aspie. According to some of what I've heard, there may be something to this one. He seems remarkably similar to someone in the online aspie community. I'm not sure that I've ever run across him myself, but some of my friends have. They found him to be creepy long before this.

There is still the question as to whether this man actually was an aspie. It has been reported that he has never been diagnosed with any form of autism. However, several aspects of the autistic community do recognize a self-diagnosis as being valid, if the person in question genuinely feels they have reason to believe it. Because of this, I am prepared to accept it.

Let me sidetrack myself to talk about the news media's role in these stories. After the Newtown massacre, Joe Scarborough had mentioned the killer may have been an aspie. This caused a huge backlash from the autism community. As a result, the media retracted the statement about Asperger's and agreed that they would not mention Asperger's or autism in a story, unless it was relevant.

The real problem with a retraction is that it doesn't undo the damage from the initial report. In addition, I would never ask for a retraction to a verifiable detail. The biggest issue with that style of reporting is that it did nothing to state the relevance of Asperger's to the story. That leave the audience to draw the connection themselves.

In the recent killing, the media seems to have forgotten their rules about talking about Asperger's. Most of the major news outlets seem to have mentioned it. To their credit, CNN and NBC did note that there is no connection between Asperger's and violence (CBS did not). Unfortunately, Joe Scarborough, an MSNBC commentator, is still apparently trying to scare people.

The real truth of the matter is that it doesn't matter whether the killer was an aspie or not. As I said, there is no evidence linking Asperger's to violence. In fact, studies have shown no significant difference in the amount of crime committed by aspies than by the general population, with a somewhat lower proportion of violent crime. Besides, think about how many aspies there are. If we were all ticking time bombs, we should be hearing about another mass shooting almost every day.

The other thing I would like to talk about briefly is mental health. Again, reports say that this man has seen several therapists, apparently indicating mental health issues. And again, there is no evidence to support a connection between violence and mental illness. In fact, mentally ill people are far more likely to be the victims of violent crime.

All I can really say on this topic is to beg people, please do not talk about mental health policy in the context of mass killings. What tends to happen is we get policy that treats mentally ill people as potential killers, rather than treating them as people that need extra support in order to function, and in some cases, to prevent them from harming themselves or others.

In conclusion, normal people do not go on killing sprees like this. Neither do aspies, autistic people, or the mentally ill. All I can say is that this man had an over-inflated sense of entitlement that, unsurprisingly, wasn't being met.