Bat Shit Crazy

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When a lone man shot his girlfriend in the stomach and then drove from Baltimore to Brooklyn to kill two police officers sitting in their car there was a real tendency to put the blame where it didn't belong.

He wasn't acting on the wishes of a mayor who dissed his own cops.

He wasn't trying to make the president happy.

He didn't even hate cops all that much.

Turns out the guy was just plain, bat shit crazy.

Or that's what it seems from our point-of-view, right?

I read a long account of the man's life.

Ismaaiyl Brinsley was a lost man.

He'd been lost for a long time. His family knew he was a mess. His friends were worried that it would end badly. Hell, one look at his social media pages told you that he was delusional, at best, and murderous at worst.

He also shot himself, which puts an end to the discussion of will he do it again. People were sad to see him die at his own hand because there was a real urge to tear him limb from limb.

He won't kill anymore.

But someone like him will.

As much play as the gun argument gets there's not enough outcry about the people who are living on the streets who do not have full range of all their capabilities.

And it's always been that way, right?

Mental illness isn't going away anytime soon, folks.

So what do we do?

We most certainly should try to keep them away from weapons of any sort.

Perhaps we should also do a better job of either getting them the help they need, or locking them away from the rest of society.

And I'm not quite sure of all the stats on how well or how poorly we're doing on a state basis or on a nationwide basis of helping, but it certainly doesn't seem like it's going all that well, does it?

Yet there is a disconnect as well.

People in Brinsley's life felt that he was 'out there a bit' but were pretty sure that he wouldn't do what he did.

Except he did.

He'd been arrested a number of times for strange and petty crimes.

We had our hands on him.

He ranted constantly on his social media pages (but who doesn't?).

But not one person stepped in to put a stop to what turned out to be a deadly journey.

And when people like Brinsley get way lost there isn't anything that's gonna' stop them (short of professional help) from carrying out their mission.

A gun law won't stop them.

The rules of society don't matter.

'It's kill and kill some more' in their diseased mind.

We're at their mercy right now, folks.

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