[quote]Makavali wrote:
[quote]Alpha F wrote:
I read that she had bought the guns for self defense. I understood that it also became a hobbie because “she enjoyed the single mindedness of shooting”.
The question to ask is why a mother of a mentally ill child takes him to a shooting range?
For all we know she might be training him to use them to potentially defend her or defend himself.
She seemed very protective and hopeful for him in having a normal life.
Maybe she even thought since he was mummy’s boy he would only use the guns to defend her.
There was no father in the picture and she could have clung to that boy in a way as to replace the emotional connection appropriate for a husband and wife only.
A lot of women replace the emotional void left by a man with one of their children; preferably a male child, usually the weakest one.
We don’t know the degree of trust and/or expectation and why he was ever exposed to her guns.
This has nothing to do with shooting paper.[/quote]
At which point, you start to think that maybe she wasn’t the best person to decide if that number and type of firearms was appropriate in her house.[/quote]
It is a good question and I have been thinking about that one with no answer yet.
I had been thinking along the lines that she should have never been allowed to own guns: should have failed a background check and been denied the right to legally own guns on account of living with and caring for a a mentally ill person.
But doesn’t that require government regulation?
As I mentioned above, I would not doubt she was psychologically ill herself.
Any normal person dealing with a mentally ill relative seeks support and feels the need to talk about their difficulties.
She was secretive about it.
I am inclined to keep it at the community level of responsibility to protect itself:
It is up to the immediate neighborhood who was aware she “loved” guns, had a severely mentally ill child AND was “guarded about her home life”.
They knew it and played “nice” by socializing with her instead of calling her out on it.
Or, in other words, they could have isolated her emotionally/socially from the community if she had failed to be transparent about the secrets she was guarding in said neighborhood.
She was rich, she was known for great acts of “charity” by giving people money and she was educated.
Who in the community is going to question someone like this?
She “bough” her privacy and for all we know she was subconsciously either protecting or helping or both in the making of a monster.
My thoughts are still unclear on this one but she is the one that if I were her neighbor I would not trust and would even move away from.
