Man Threatens to Kill Washington Representative's Entire Family

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0112/Man-arrested-after-threats-to-Rep.-Jim-McDermott-I-ll-kill-his-family

From the article, Halbermann (the arrested party) certainly did not hold back: "'I’ll round them up,' he added. 'I’ll kill them. I’ll kill his friends, I’ll kill his family, I will kill everybody he ****ing knows.'"

Other tidbit: "Habermann took issue with Mc Dermott’s characterization of the issues in the tax debate. He said Democratic members of Congress were 'stealing' money from 'the wealthy' and giving it away to 'losers.' He said Mc Dermott would never get away with it."

Now one interesting (YMMV) question is this: being that the threats were made back in December, would this guy have been arrested had the Arizona tragedy not occurred?

Sounds like a case of "let's ignore this loony, oh crap, some other loony just made a mess in the media, we should get him".

Surprised they didn't get to him ASAP.

Seriously what the fuck? Did all of the lunatic extremists all go off of their meds in past couple months or something?

edited 12th Jan '11 11:32:47 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Death threats have increased a lot in the past couple years. The feds may not have been keeping up with all of them.

Oh great, just what we need. Copycats.

The only loser is him, most poorer people probably work harder then him for less and he has the gall to call them losers?

Going to break out any other lower income stereotypes?

Here's some food for thought, after how many more failed assassination attempts/would be militias/shootings/and death threats can the republican party and fox news continue to claim they are not inciting violence?

It was only a matter of time before the copycats came out of the woodwork...

Seriously what the fuck? Did all of the lunatic extremists all go off of their meds in past couple months or something?

Can we keep ablist comments like this out of the discussion? Mental illness doesn't cause people to become murderers. It's insulting to all the people who suffer from mental illness and DON'T go on murderous rampages. People with mental problems need help, not scorn.

Can these folks even be helped?

Sort of depends on the disorder, doesn't it?

I mean, I know that paranoid schizophrenics tend to pop up quite a bit in these sorts of cases. It's not ablist if your specific problem does, in fact, make you significantly more violent and unpredictable, and thus... well, more likely to become a murderer.

Also, should point out that the guy in the OP isn't a copycat. The threats were made in December.

edited 13th Jan '11 10:03:38 AM by Iaculus

Bitch, please.

According to the article, he said he had been drinking and smoking pot when he made the calls.

Turns out potheads are worthless dumbasses. What a shocker.

EDIT:

Seriously? I thought people only used "ablist" as a joke.

edited 13th Jan '11 12:44:48 PM by Wanderhome

Death/violence threats are hardly uncommon for gov't officials. It's less likely he would have been arrested before last weekend's going ons, I think.

x5 Ablist? Really?

Well threats should be taken more seriously, now that it's been established that people might actually go through with them.

That was established long before the Tucson thing.

So he got drunk and did something really really stupid? STOP THE MOTHERFUCKING PRESSES!

Drunkenness does not negate responsibility.

He was noted as being mentally ill as are quite few of the individuals that get rounded up for this and other random acts of horrible human behaviour. Did I say all mentally ill people? Nope climb down off your high horse.

Well threats should be taken more seriously, now that it's been established that people might actually go through with them.

I uh...think we established that sometime around the Ides of March. or at least got it on very good record by then.

The problem with figuring out who is just mad and yelling loudly and who might go through with it for w/e odd reason can be a bit of a odd grey area to pass through.

edited 13th Jan '11 6:18:29 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Also, considering I take medication primarily for the purposes of avoiding hulking out, I don't get offended at any of those "LOL, crazy fucker went off his meds" jokes.

Seriously, I'm goddamn tired of irresponsible people not taking their medication and then expecting to be treated with sympathy. No, it's a treatable medical condition. Taking your damn pills is not that much of a fucking burden.

What I find a bit disconcerting is my nurse friend has worked with other nurses who would occasionally go off their psych meds because "Oh, I'm feeling all right now" even though they knew better. They had to be babysat a little and asked on occasion if they were keeping up with their medicine and chided if they weren't.

If people in the medical profession who are taught otherwise are occasionally incapable of keeping up their mental upkeep I can't help but think that the percentage of non-medically trained people who stop taking their pills because "I don't need them anymore" is much much higher.

Yeah see that's exactly the mindset that shits me up the wall. It's almost as bad as those dickweeds who don't take their full course of antibiotics because they're not feeling so bad anymore.

NO, DICKHEAD! YOU KEEP TAKING THEM UNTIL EITHER YOUR DOCTOR STOPS OR BLOOD STARTS COMING OUT OF ORIFICE IT ISN'T SUPPOSED TO. IF YOU DON'T, SO HELP ME I WILL BREAK INTO YOUR HOME AND FORCE FEED YOU THE DAMN MEDICATION.

*ahem*

But yeah, I am quite painfully aware of the simple fact that my condition is chronic and that if I stop taking my medication then the whole "being a functional member of society in control of his own emotions" thing goes away.

Fortunately, it's not a sudden thing. It's more like if I miss one dose I become slightly loopy and short tempered. If I go off meds for a day I'm basically Karkat and I suppose if I went off for a week or so I'd be back to the previous "300 pound whirlwind of death" mode. But I don't get it that far, because I happen to rather enjoy not being a prisoner to the Unstoppable Rage which is my default unmedicated emotion.

Self awareness is an important skill, but one sadly lacking in the general population.

Sometimes I curse the fact most of the time we cannot force people to take their meds.

Damn freedom and liberty!

Hm, perhaps an implant that uses a controlled release of the compound...

Or we could forget you ever said that and hope that no one else ever gets the same idea.