Still like Ron Paul? Think again...

[Mick-Boy]

Wow.... There are a couple of very big topics being discussed here.

I'll admit "You live by the Sword, you die by the sword" was one of the first things that crossed my mind when I heard about Chief Kyle. However, I did not mean it in the context that I think Dr Paul did. I thought Muslims had tracked him down (the radicalized US citizen kind) and had filled him in on the range.

For years I've been pretty sure I will be killed by a fire arm, or IED, or mortar, or whatever. If you are around firearms long enough and use them for violence on your fellow man, you should expect that shit will come back around eventually. If I get smoked at work, "You live by the sword, etc" would not be an out of place summary and I wouldn't consider it disrespectful. I choose to make my living this way. So in that respect, I almost get it..

I say almost because Chief Kyle had hung up his guns and walked away from being a gunfighter to save his family. He no longer employed weapons in an offensive manner to kill or capture his fellow man. He no longer "lived by the sword". He was out trying to help a guy get right.

Let's get something straight here and now. Homicidal tenancies are *NOT*, in any medical resource I'm aware of, a symptom of PTSD. If it is proven that the shooter, for some reason, slipped into reliving a TIC & saw the two victims as muhj before he popped them THEN I think it's fair to address the PTSD claim. reliving events IS a PTSD symptom. Smoking someone because they piss you off or something trips your murder switch is NOT a PTSD symptom.

It should be noted that the scumbag had a DUI recently. If he's being treated with SSRIs, as many vets are being practically force fed by DoD & the VA care systems, then adding alcohol to that is a known bomb fuse. Never mind the fact that the dude might have had screws loose to begin with.


And Fmedges nailed it. Taking a guy suffering from PTSD to the range with like minded people is (in my limited experience) very helpful.

I'm not a shrink and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn express last night, these are just my personal observations and beliefs.

Some PTSD is a result of what you might call "moral injury", people seeing things that fly in the face of what they consider right or good. Some guys have survivors guilt (One of the Marines I led is living at my house who has this in a bad way). Others don't really have "PTSD" so much as they are just really disconnected from American society when they get out of the military. Losing that sense of brotherhood and purpose can be a shock. Finding out that there aren't many places that can fill that void outside the military can be a very depressing realization.

Taking someone like this to the range, spending time with like minded people who have similar experience and doing things they were doing the last time they felt a real connection with people can be extremely therapeutic.

[Mick-Boy]

And just to muddle the "PTSD made me do it" waters a little more....

Iraq War Vet Had been in Mental Hospital
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — The Iraq War veteran charged with killing a former Navy SEAL sniper and his friend on a Texas shooting range had been taken to a mental hospital twice in the past four months, police records show.

Eddie Ray Routh was taken to a mental hospital on Sept. 2 after threatening to kill his family and then commit suicide, according to police records in Lancaster, where Routh lives. Authorities found Routh walking nearby with no shirt and no shoes, and smelling of alcohol. Routh told authorities he was a Marine veteran who was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

"Eddie stated he was hurting and that his family does not understand what he has been through," the report said.

Routh's mother told police that her son had been drinking and became upset when his father said he was going to sell his gun. She said Routh began arguing with them and said he was going to "blow his brains out."

Police took Routh to Green Oaks Hospital for psychiatric care.

Dallas police records show Routh was taken back to the same mental hospital in mid-January after a woman called police and said she feared for Routh's safety.

Sniper murder suspect ‘traded soul for a new truck,’ affidavit says
Eddie Routh, the double murder suspect who allegedly killed retired Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield, might have committed the crimes to steal Kyle’s truck, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by News 8.

Routh confessed to his sister and her husband about the crime on Saturday night, the document says. When they asked whose black truck he was driving, Routh told them “he traded his soul for a new truck,” according to the affidavit.

Routh has a psychiatric diagnosis, not PTSD but something more like schizophrenia, and unknown to Chris and Chad Littlefield (his friend), was off his meds.
http://weaponsman.com/?p=6990

It appears that he was a 2111 MOS (small arms repair). It is beginning to look like he blamed PTSD for much deeper mental issues.

[Ronin13]

Mick- I won't quote because you had quite a bit there- but I have to say I agree 100%. However, saying someone died in that way because they "lived by the sword" is a very poor choice of words. I also agree that the range is a great place to help with PTSD in vets- it gives them a sense of normalcy (at least it did for me). The left with their rhetoric is deplorable- thinking that every veteran with PTSD just simply forgot their training, lost their instincts, and can't be trusted with a firearm is so disgusting that I would love to feed them their teeth if it weren't inappropriate to do. In this case- it would appear that the killer was a deeply disturbed and very sick individual. I doubt that it will get out in the MSM that his main issue wasn't PTSD.

[tmleadr03]

What this is is a growing trend by the media to present service members as somehow broken, just because they served.

http://blog.usni.org/2013/02/05/vete...gainst-chatter

[T-Jet]

Anyone else think it's a little convenient that a very outspoken defender of 2a rights is allegedly gunned down by a vet with PTSD, when the administration has been demonizing returning vets? Claim that PTSD is too dangerous to have 2a rights for retuning vets, there by disarming those most qualified to put up an effective resistance, and take out someone that is a natural leader. Two birds one stone. Not getting out the tinfoil yet but this is reading like Enemies Foreign and Domestic.

and John Noveske...

[Bailey Guns]

RP issued a really lame-assed "clarification" of his remarks today. He should probably just keep his mouth shut.

[bryjcom]

I think the manufactured hysteria over his comments is lame.

[Bailey Guns]

I think the rationalizations by some that his comments were somehow reasonable or appropriate are really...not surprising.

[tmleadr03]

I think the rationalizations by some that his comments were somehow reasonable or appropriate are really...not surprising.

Indeed.

[bryjcom]

I think the rationalizations by some that his comments were somehow reasonable or appropriate are really...not surprising.

Appropriate?? No. Way to soon and insensitive.

The fact that a guy who writes a book detailing and somewhat bragging about killing hundreds of human beings, ends up getting killed in the same manner as he dealt death to his book's characters..... Live by the sword, die by the sword?????

And taking a guy who's had two trips to the mental hospital in the last 5 months to the shooting range is gonna have LOTS of people question that decision. Just saying.

With that said.

May God bless the soul of Chris Kyle.