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Lemme tell you something about the El Paso shooter's manifesto from a college English professor's perspective. (And, no, I will not be naming him or linking to the thing.)
It's pretty well-written. It's got a thesis, points of view that are developed, and a strong perspective. All in all, if I got this in a class where the assignment was entirely amoral, I'd give it a solid B- or even a B.
Now why am I saying this kind of bullshit when the writer of the manifesto is obviously an evil, murdering son of a bitch? Why give him this kind of consideration? The reason is simple:
That manifesto wasn't written by someone who is "mentally ill," at least not in the sense that we mean "only crazy people commit massacres." It's an insult to everyone with genuine mental illness to say he is. (See our dumb motherfucker of a president.)
It was written in a rational voice. You wanna see "crazy"? Read the Christchurch murderer's book-length screed. But the El Paso shooter comes across as an earnest student who is trying to write a good essay.
His thought process was poisoned by terrible people, from online message boards on up to the goddamned president. That's not to give him any sympathy, especially when he goes on his creepy tangent about the guns and bullets he's using.
But it is to say that declaring that those who commit massacres are mentally ill is just a cheap way to get out of doing anything about the guns and the ideological poison in our system.
