Does blame come into this? Why is society so focussed on blame? Yes, consider prevention where possible, but that isn't always possible either. Sometimes bad things happen and even with hindsight it's hard to see how things could have happened otherwise, except by chance.
While we fret about semantics and definitions, we're falling into the same trap of trying to assign blame for something that frankly is fairly random. How often do we, on this site, moan about not being able to force our kids to stay on medications or to cooperate in therapy? We have a trade-off - individual human rights, vs enforcing people to get medical help.
No person considers themselves to be bad, by choice. Every person wants to be seen as a good person. For each person, our personal perception is not necessarily what other people see, and vice versa. My friend's ex-husband was a high-ranking engineer for a mining company. He had access to documents at the top security level. He put in long hours for the company, felt unappreciated. Then he felt that someone was trying to sabotage him. From there, he began to realise that his wife was trying to discredit him by having him declared unbalanced - this would wreck his credibility and therefore his career. He was very angry with her, became even more so when she restricted his access to his kids. And the sabotage seemed to be working - his boss told him his work was slipping badly and he missed promotions. He was passed over for a lucrative conference presentation. The harder he worked, the more it seemed people worked harder to undermine him, especially his wife. He felt it was money she was after, plus custody of the kids. He increasingly felt she would stop at nothing to be rid of him - she must be having an affair - so he watched her closely for signs of treachery. She clearly didn't trust him, so she must have known he was on to her. She clearly had become mentally unbalanced, and yet SHE was the one trying to get HIM admitted to a psychiatric ward! This meant that psychiatrists were in on it too, including the company doctor. They prescribed stuff for him which they SAID was medication, but it was slowing him down mentally. He was able to think faster and better than anyone else, he was clearly functioning at a superior level, but they wanted to take that away from him. That could not be allowed, not at any cost.
He was a nice man. He loved his kids, had been a good father. But he tried to kill his wife and she had to go into hiding. His psychosis lasted for some years, in and out of hospital. In hospital he stabilised on medication. Out of hospital he stopped the medications and psychosis would return.
I don't know why things changed, but they did. He has been stable for fifteen years. He has remarried and is on very good terms with his ex-wife and their kids. he is still a top-ranking engineer, but he no longer pushes himself so hard professionally; overwork was the initial trigger.
But what is truth? What is reality? If he had hurt his wife, kids or anybody in that time I don't think he could have lived with that knowledge, once some level of awareness returned. Fortunately (and it IS pure luck) that didn't happen.
It is not our place to define truth, nor to assign where blame lies, if anywhere. And that powerlessness makes the whole situation even more distressing, more frustrating. People died. Randomly. It has happened. A young man was unbalanced (admittedly from my own unprofessional point of view, from the scraps of footage we've seen). He died. A lot of people are grieving.
My friend and her ex were lucky. The people in VT were not. The tragedy is appalling. Let's hope that what we CAN make of this can equip us to prevent similar problems in the future.
Marg