Sadly, I think you're on to something with this. On so many levels.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-next-pandemic-mental-illness-homelessness-buffalo-shooting-online-hospital-11652906894The Next Pandemic: Mental Illness
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That is ending. They are everywhere—on the streets, in our homes, our schools and prisons. Emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic, America is overflowing with people suffering from a broad range of mental disturbance. Mental illness is the U.S.’s next pandemic.
At one extreme, Buffalo mass-murder suspect Payton Gendron is another case study in how the U.S. looks past this problem. As with Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland, Fla., mass murderer, it is being widely reported that Gendron was admitted to a hospital last year for mental evaluation, that “signals were missed,” etc. At Virginia Tech 15 years ago, “signals were missed” for a disturbed 23-year-old shooter who killed 32 people.
Signals aren’t missed. They are ignored, because there is no pragmatic understanding of what to do with the signals of mental illness. Instead, we divert into a largely irrelevant search for “motive.”
Note how official commentary about the Buffalo shooting is overwhelmingly political, with President Joe Biden and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul describing the attacks primarily as racism, and the media obsessing over “replacement theory.” Defaulting to recrimination puts us in our current political comfort zone, while the reality of Payton Gendron’s mental disturbance will fade—until next time.
