Scratching heads for the July 23 Lafayette, Louisiana movie theater rampage of 59-year-old mentally disturbed ne’er-do-well John Houser, authorities refused to speculate. Killing two young women and injuring scores more at a showing of Judd Apatow’s “The Trainwreck,” Houser ended his rampage with a bullet to the head. “Our intelligence section is still analyzing a lot of that,” said Layfayette Police Col. Paul Mouton, referring to why Houser opened fire in a crowded theater. Looking a like a copycat killing of James Holmes July 20, 2012 Aurora, Colorado movie theater mayhem, killing 12 and injuring 70, Layfayette police refused to speculate on Houser’s motive. Unlike the June 17 Charleston, S.C. Emanuel AME Church massacre, where 21-year-old racist Dylann Roof gunned down nine members of a black bible study, including 42-year-old Pastor Clementa Pinckney, Lafayette’s motive looks murky.
When Atty. Gen. Lorretta Lynch decided to seek federal hate crime charges against Roof July 22, law enforcement and media had their motive: Racism. Regardless of the media’s single-motive mentality, Roof has in common with other serial or mass killers diagnosable mental illness. Looking for a motive in Houser’s rampage, you don’t have to look too far see the shooter’s deranged mental health history. Though able to buy his 40 caliber High-Point semiautomatic handgun legally at a pawn shot in Phenix City, Alabama, pawn shop, federal background checks don’t include mental health histories or restraining orders. Before his wife filed for a restraining order in 2008, he flew a Confederate flag outside his home and Swastika on his bar when authorities tried to shut him down. In 1989, a judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation after Houser tried to torch his attorney office.
Louisana Gov. Bobby Jindal rebuffed press questions about whether or not Houser’s rampage raised legitimate questions about gun control. “Now is not the time,” said Jindal, refusing to comment on whether or not the state required changes to its gun control laws. Gun enthusiast rocker Ted Nugent, in Lafayette for a sportsman’s expo, backed Jindal’s refusal to talk about gun control. President Barack Obaoma admitted, before leaving for Kenya July 23, that his biggest frustration as president is the inability to stop senseless gun violence. Second Amendment and National Rifle Assn. advocates like Jindal, reject liberal ideas that something more can be done to stop gun violence. Even after the Dec. 14, 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20-year-old Adam Lanza slaughtered 27 children and teachers, Jindal said no to new gun control.
Word of Houser posting on extremists message boards praising Adolf Hitler or trying to get a meeting with former Ku Klux Klan member David Duke, points to racist motives but make no sense why he targeted random folks in a dark movie theater. Looking for a single motive deceives the public into thinking there’s rational thinking behind most serial killings or mass murders. FBI profilers refuse call the July 16 Chattanooga, Tenn. slayings by 25-year-old Muhammed Yousef Abdulazeez, killing five and injuring two, terrorism, despite targeting Marine and Navy recruitment centers. Any cursory look at Abdulazeez shows a history of mental illness, regardless to picking soft military targets. Whether the motive is terrorism, racism or anything else, perpetrators have in common mental illness, often not treated successfully, if at all, before going ballistic and preying on victims.
Lafayette authorities claim they don’t know what prompted Houser to go postal at a local multiplex movie theater. Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor confirmed that Houser was refused a concealed weapons license in 2006 because of a domestic violence arrest. “What should be scary for the community is that the cuts being made in mental health around the state are allowing these people, who should not be walking around, to be out in the community,” said Sheriff, pointing fingers that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal the conservative legislature. Whether Houser is allowed to walk the streets or not, he shouldn’t be allowed, with his well-documented mental health history, to buy a handgun. Community mental health experts know that it’s difficult to lock up grossly disabled mental patients, even when they present a danger to themselves and public at large.
Searching for a single motive often diverts attention away from the real problem of undiagnosed mental illness, often contributing to violence. While the mental health community is quick to point out that mental illness per se doesn’t cause violence, it goes hand-in-hand with some of the worst serial killings and mass murders recorded in recent history. If 23-year-old Virginia Tech undergraduate mass killer Seung-Hui Cho got proper psychiatric care, he wouldn’t have killed 32 people Oct. 31, 2013. More importantly, if federal gun laws included mental health background checks, Cho wouldn’t have amassed the arsenal and ammunition needed for his killing spree. While Houser only killed two innocent women, Mayci Breauz, 21, and Jillian Johnson, 33, his dangerous mental illness was poorly managed. Second Amendment advocates need to finally clamp down on the mentally ill.
