Well, that makes one of us.
I certainly did hit a nerve, didn’t I?
I’m sorry you’re not over it.
Tincture of time. It works.
Let it go. You are not that important and nor am I. Maybe take a walk or something. 
Moderator note
Perhaps you both should drop it so the thread can get back on track; if you can’t, try the Pit.
I was keying on the last sentence:
[QUOTE=Annie Xmas]
You cannot make this shit up.
[/QUOTE]
which I took to be anti-gun snark. Not that I am particularly pro-gun, just anti-snark on this particular issue.
Roddy
I am thinking marksmanship may have been something the shooter felt a certain amount of confidence and pride in and that the SEAL thought reconnecting him to that feeling through target shooting would be a good thing. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out.
Accomplishing that has been rather more challenging than we originally anticipated.
eek, I hope a mod merges my thread with this one
Ok I hope I can do this answer justice after traveling all day and a long weekend.
PTSD is a current boogie man. But regardless of what it looks like in popular media, violence is not a usual symptom. The guy in this case may have had other issues beyond PTSD. Unless there was someone else there we may never know the full story.
I can not claim to be a war hero. I spent a year in Baghdad. I certainly didn’t see hard combat like these guys. Being a gun range is nothing like combat. It’s the difference between being in a tsunami and going to a coy pond. Bringing someone out to a range to do something they loved before combat does not seem like a bad idea. Unlike violence, isolation and self-destructive behavior are usual symptoms of severe PTSD. For someone suffering from PTSD socialization is very important. For someone who did not grow up with or enjoy guns it’s probably not a good idea. For someone who enjoys shooting as an activity I can see it being effective.
Add to that, the fact that there are no witnesses and the bodies were discovered later… I’m guessing that the range was empty when they were there. Since the victim had a business relationship with the range (planned seminar later in the month).. it is possible that the only gun fire at the range was that of the suspect and two victims. So, a totally controlled environment and not a lot of gun fire as is normally imagined about a firing range.
I’m a veteran of a combat zone, though not a combat veteran. (As in, I never engaged in combat, but have had my share of being rocketed.) One of the precipitating/aggravating conditions of PTSD is the isolation. People around you want to help, but they just don’t have a clue where you’ve been, or what you’ve seen or done. I can definitely see hanging out with fellow combat veterans, doing things you’re all used to and comfortable with being helpful.
Or, on preview, pretty much what Loach said.
No attempts at all to legislate treatment for the mentally ill does not constitute meeting the challenge. That is why it is called doing nothing.
Well not exactly, but he had an extremely effective and quick method of curing people’s mental ailments, that he had used on a couple of hundred disturbed souls in his career.
Thanks for the comments, Loach and Lucretia - helps me to understand.
I think its important to repeat that violent behavior is not a usual symptom of PTSD. The crazy vet meme is pushed by the media. Every time there is a shooting the press immediately puts in requests to see if its a veteran. One of the first things they report. When a report about some crazy vet comes out I wait a few days to see what his military service really was. The “Ex-Marine” Pathmark shooter was stationed in California and discharged for disciplinary reasons. The fact that he was a Marine is in the headline, the details are buried on page 2. The news was very quick to say the Sihk temple shooter was an Army veteran but often buried the context (support soldier who served in peacetime). There are millions of veterans. Some are screwed up. Some were screwed up long before they joined. Military Service even in wartime does not turn you into a crazed psycho.
As for the topic at hand. There were a number of times I woke up on the floor with my body armor pulled over top of me. My unconscious brain reacted to the incoming rockets before I could wake up. When I got home after my tour it was the beginning of July. One of the first things I did was go to a July 4th party. When we went to see the fireworks I felt very anxious. But hearing the explosions and seeing the pretty colors helped. I never felt that way again. A little while latter I had to transition to Combat Engineer. Now I blow shit up on ranges and the sound and feeling never bothers me. I can see the benefit of going to a range with someone with PTSD. I have a feeling the guy had some other deeper problems. Maybe some that pre-dated his military service.
As far as I can tell, treatment does not make most people not-mentally-ill, it just makes them functional, for about as long as the it (assuming it is the optimal, effective treatment) continues. My point was more to the effect that we have not been able to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, which is compounded by not having a reasonable standard for what would disqualify a person from having a gun. And, of course, no real means to accessorize the people who make guns available to those who probably should not have them.
Well, how about Airsoft? Paintball? Laser tag? Something less lethal than a real gun?
Running around doing simulated combat is a lot closer to the feel of the real thing than target shooting at a range.
And remember he also helped disabled vets. Many cant run around playing Airsoft. And I know an equal amount of vets that enjoy paintball and Airsoft and those that sneer at it as being for wannabes who can’t hack the real thing.
Thanks, Loach. My guy is a vet and this hit him really hard, to the point where he couldn’t answer my questions. Now I can tell him that I get it.
On various military blogs and sites its now being reported that the suspect was a mechanic who never went outside the wire and never saw combat. Which was pretty much my first thought though I didn’t want to say it out loud. In my experience, the ones that seem to wear their “combat” related dysfunction on their sleeve are the REMFs. Although Alex Jones is reporting this as fact too which means the information is far from confirmed.