I’m sure this might be considered controversial but bear with me – my proposition is that if one can be considered mentally ill for exhibiting certain characteristics, if another exhibits the same characteristics, they also should be considered mentally ill.

Think about these characteristics and who they remind you of:

• They are injustice collectors who spend a great deal of time feeling resentful about real or imagined rejections and ruminating on past humiliations.
• A paranoid worldview with chronic feelings of social persecution, envy, and grudge holding.
• They are tormented by beliefs that privileged others are enjoying life’s all-you-can-eat buffet, while they must peer through the window, an outside loner always looking in.
• Aggrieved and entitled, they long for power and revenge to obliterate what they cannot have.
• Since satisfaction is unobtainable lawfully and realistically, they are reduced to violent fantasy and pseudo-power.
• They create and enact an odious screenplay of grandiose and public retribution. Like the child who upends the checkerboard when he does not like the way the game is going, they seek to destroy others for apparent failures to recognize and meet his needs.
• Fury, deep despair, and callous selfishness eventually crystalize into fantasies of violent revenge on a scale that will draw attention.
• They typically expect their movement to die and frequently do in what amounts to a mass homicide-personal suicide. They may kill their own ideas or script matters so that the movement will be killed by the authorities to preserve “victim” status.

Remind you of progressive SJWs (Social Justice Warriors)? The #blacklivesmatter crowd? Student “movements” like ConcernedStudent1950?

Did me – I modified them slightly but these aren’t characteristics listed as descriptive of any of these “movements”, these were actually identified by Dr. Allen J. Frances in a May 30, 2014 post at the site Psychology Today as the characteristics of a mass murderer – specifically those like Harris and Klebold, Adam Lanza, James Holmes and likely Colorado Springs shooter, Robert Lewis Dear.

This is the actual excerpt from the article:

“Individual case studies involving psychological autopsy and a careful analysis of the often copious communications left behind suggest common psychological themes. The mass murderer is an injustice collector who spends a great deal of time feeling resentful about real or imagined rejections and ruminating on past humiliations. He has a paranoid worldview with chronic feelings of social persecution, envy, and grudge holding. He is tormented by beliefs that privileged others are enjoying life’s all-you-can-eat buffet, while he must peer through the window, an outside loner always looking in.

Aggrieved and entitled, he longs for power and revenge to obliterate what he cannot have. Since satisfaction is unobtainable lawfully and realistically, the mass murderer is reduced to violent fantasy and pseudo-power. He creates and enacts an odious screenplay of grandiose and public retribution. Like the child who upends the checkerboard when he does not like the way the game is going, he seeks to destroy others for apparent failures to recognize and meet his needs. Fury, deep despair, and callous selfishness eventually crystalize into fantasies of violent revenge on a scale that will draw attention.The mass murderer typically expects to die and frequently does in what amounts to a mass homicide-personal suicide. He may kill himself or script matters so that he will be killed by the police.”

From a diagnostic and logical standpoint, if one who exhibits these characteristics is dangerously mentally ill, the possibility that others exhibiting these same characteristics are mentally ill as well must be considered.

Dr. Frances uses this situation to promote gun control and to link the NRA to supporting the dangerously mentally ill acquiring firearms by not supporting “measures that would restrict high-risk individuals from having such easy access to guns”. The irony is that federal laws like HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) actually prevent such information regarding mental health from being available. The NRA does not support the mentally ill from having weapons, it is against forbidding the majority of Americans the protection of the Second Amendment in order to stop the dangerously mentally ill from access.

Setting the illegitimate gun ban discussion aside, the commonality between the psychology of the current SJW “movements” and mass murderers is an interesting subject to contemplate…