Not all .shooters. are .MENTALLY .ILL By Jean Mlincek

I do not intend to debate gun control in the United States.  I know there are some who say that banning assault style weapons won’t solve the problem of mass shootings, but neither will blaming every shooting on mental illness. We have made mental illness the scapegoat for a lot of what ails our country.  Truth is, not everyone who goes on a rampage is mentally ill.  
There are, however, downright evil people on this planet who have the ability to lay out their heinous crimes in horrifying detail weeks and months before they actually execute those plans, and who are fully aware of the conse-quences of their actions.  Fully aware.  
How on earth they have the audacity to plead “not guilty” is beyond me, oth-er than they know they can cop the insanity plea while mama stands by with heart-rending theatrics, insisting “I know my boy, and he wouldn’t do some-thing like this.”  Yeah, right.  Tell that to the young woman who stepped into a car thinking she was entering an Uber vehicle and subsequently ended up with 120 stab wounds on her body.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m all for “innocent until proven guilty”, but criminals today know they have the upper hand.  They know they have more rights than the victim.  Have you ever noticed how the news media are always careful to say “the ALLEGED gunman”, even though 20 videos captured his deed and 50 cops wrestled him to the ground, clutching a recently fired gun in his hands.  Maybe the “law” dictates the media must use the term “al-leged” to the point of ridiculousness, but, hey, there we go again, sheltering the person responsible for the constant flow of innocent blood in our schools, our churches, our synagogues, our malls, our entertainment venues, and on our own front lawns. 
Ever wonder why we don’t call the victims “ALLEGED victims”? Oh, I for-got.  They are dead.  Beyond-a-reasonable-doubt dead.  Still, thanks to our Christian-Judeo values, we insist that no one is beyond rehabilitation, and, of course, EVERY American citizen is “entitled” to a trial by his or her peers, regardless.

After all, we don’t want any rush to judgment for these cold-blooded killers, even though the victims were not given that luxury,  Bang! Bang! Bang! And an innocent life is snuffed out. We do everything possible to safeguard the “rights” of the killer, but what about justice for the victims of random vio-lence?  If a law is ineffective at obtaining justice for the deceased, let’s do something about it vs. sitting back and saying we have the best system in the world.  Tell that to the survivors of the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 fourth-graders and two teachers were killed by a relentless moron.
Not only does the media shrink from calling a spade a spade, but they love to hype the motive for such senselessness as if  knowing the motive will be a salve.  Who cares about the freaking’ motive?  More often than not, knowing the motive backfires, offering sympathy for the killer.  Poor guy was forced to eat his own boogers as a child, or was bullied, or came from a dysfunctional household.  My God, those are ALL legit reasons for random massacres, ya think?

​We need to quit coddling the offender, of giving our courtrooms over to clowns representing themselves, of giving near-celebrity status to cold heart-ed murderers.  We believe there are good people on this planet, so why can’t we come to grips with the fact that there are abhorrently evil people?
Not all mass killers are mentally ill.  
Jean Mlincek is a freelance writer who resides in St. Petersburg, FL.