It matters for many reasons: it explains why the shooter chose this target, and it is part of the explanation for why the community didn't intervene with this person.

I would tell the cop it was a Dodge, but that I didn't know any more than that. I don't see how what I'm doing is different. I think it's mental illness, but I don't know what to call it.

It is what I think, but I am comfortable with people who disagree with what I think. I certainly entertain the possibility, and I have gone so far as to say that without racism, this particular attack would not have happened. I just think that some other attack — or at least the impulse to attack — would have happened…

I'm sorry if my statement came across that way. I do think he would have chosen something else, but I don't think racism didn't matter. I feel I've clarified that in my subsequent comments.

There's a big area between "nothing to do with" and "was all about."

I have not responded rudely to any of the people who have responded to me. I have engaged in the discussion that I asked for.

Of *that* violence, yes, I agree. But of the impulse toward violence? I think that persists.

Again, ideally, yes.

I use mental illness as a catchall because I don't think specific disorders are sufficiently set in stone, scientifically.

Right now that evidence is lacking, and treatment is a distant dream for most. But it's there for us to achieve through decades and probably centuries of research. We need to be moving toward it.

Ideally, yes.

I'm confident you're right. :) In a sufficiently enlightened world, he'd have been intervened with before he was able to act. But the impulse to act violently would, I feel sure, have remained.

Agreed. Sadly, we don't have the language needed for this discussion, and the science is still at a shockingly low level of sophistication. But it's something we need to focus on and think about, not shout down.

As you know, it's a hard thing to document and to prove. We don't understand the brain well enough at all, so even if we had the research, it would be provisional at best. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about the fact that there is very likely something going on in that brain, biologically, that would still…

As a materialist reductionist, yes.

I think we need a lot more hair-splitting and a lot less shutting down of discussion. That's my entire point.

I believe mental illness *was* the reason he did this. And racism was the reason he did *this* particular this.

Fair enough. I absolutely want to acknowledge that both mental illness and racism are causes of this incident, and that is what I have been trying (probably poorly) to say.

But I want to have that discussion.

I'm not in a position to make any assertions about that or to offer any evidence, no. I didn't come here to pretend to be an expert. Did you?