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> I began to carry a gun every day, dealing with the PTSD issues, and fourteen months later I shot a man and unfortunately caused his death. He doesn't really

> I began to carry a gun every day, dealing with the PTSD issues, and fourteen months later I shot a man and unfortunately caused his death. He doesn't really seem to want to take responsibility for killing someone. I am sure solitary is terrible, but so is being killed by someone like him.

dgellow 7y ago
What do you mean “he doesn’t take responsibility”? He’s not saying that he shouldn’t have been to prison, he’s sharing an experience being tortured by the state while purging his prison sentence.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- probably_wrong 7y ago
  > What do you mean “he doesn’t take responsibility”? It's probably an issue of poorly chosen words, but compare > fourteen months later I shot a man and unfortunately caused his death. with > fourteen months later, I shot and killed a man. The way that it's currently written sounds like an accident: "I, a victim of PTSD, shot a man and, in a bizarre twist of events, he died from it". The passive voice there paints a disconnection between the cause and the effect. Of course, judging a man's life from two sentences is nonsense. It just so happens that those two sentences are very unfortunate. But that's on the editor.
  - austhrow743 7y ago
    Yeah his choice of language there could just as easily be applied to a hunting accident. Super minimising of his activities.
  - Carpetsmoker 7y ago
    At the same time, people are the product of our environment, so ignoring that context would also be foolish. Of course, it's easier to blame a child and sentence him to two decades of prison instead of actually fixing the urban hellholes they grew up in, so we end up with years of solitary confinement and these kind of comments on HN :-/
  - falcor84 7y ago
    I don't quite see it that way - it reads to me as a very careful choice of words explaining that he shot the person intentionally, but did not intend for him to die. As I understand, this would be the difference between voluntary manslaughter and murder.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    it's not written in the passive voice though? in that sentence "shot" and "caused" are both active verbs with "I" as the subject. it's a bit more detached than saying "I shot and killed a man", but I don't think it shows a lack of remorse or responsibility. if anything, it emphasizes the regret at the irreversible outcome.
tda 7y ago
That is really besides the point, because this article is about the third world, or should I say medieval prison system in the USA. That system is a crime against humanity in far too many ways. It is just one of the things many Europeans just don't get why you think it's acceptible. The prison system in the USA is a major cause of crime, not a solution. No civilized country has jailed up anywhere near the percentage of the population as the USA
- manigandham 7y ago
  How is it a cause of crime?
  - tda 7y ago
    Recidivism is very high when people get PTSD, no mental health support or any support whatsoever when they are let free after a decade or two. In civilised countries the prison systems main objective is preparing someone for the life after prison. In other countries revenge is the top priority
  - QualityReboot 7y ago
    If you're a felon, you typically can't get traditional employment. For most people, it's a shorter jump to "criminal" than "consultant".
  - Proziam 7y ago
    Several factors. 1. If you go to prison, innocent or otherwise, you're not getting hired afterward. This leads to desperation, desperation leads to... 2. In prison, you become socially reliant on criminals to simply get by. This results in cultural transference. Someone getting in trouble for shoplifting learns about the joys of [insert more lucrative criminal activity here]. Combine this with point 1 and you get repeat offenders who become 'hardened' criminals. Basically, they get better at crime, because crime involves skills just like everything else in life. 3. Poor prison conditions result in psychological trauma. This, in turn, leads to anti-social behavior. In short, we pay a lot of money to create better criminals who are highly motivated to commit more crimes.
  - 7y ago
kick 7y ago
What does the qualifier "someone like him" mean in this context? Is getting killed by anyone not terrible? I don't see how getting killed by a former honor-roll student who left an abusive household two years before he was legally allowed to drive, had already been shot, and was left on the streets paranoid, mentally-ill and traumatized before he was even past the age of majority, is any worse than getting killed by just about anyone.
- miked85 7y ago
  Obviously poor phrasing on my part, I would not like to be killed by anyone.
kiba 7y ago
The state or government still have responsibility not to torture someone.
Skgqie1 7y ago
Even if that's completely true, it doesn't detract from the points made in the article. Violating human rights doesn't become acceptable just because someone is a bad person, and the American prison system doesn't become justifiable just because there are bad people there - because they're still people. Pretty much no one (under normal circumstances) wants to be killed or die. I'm not sure why you even mentioned it?

dgellow 7y ago

What do you mean “he doesn’t take responsibility”? He’s not saying that he shouldn’t have been to prison, he’s sharing an experience being tortured by the state while purging his prison sentence.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
probably_wrong 7y ago
> What do you mean “he doesn’t take responsibility”? It's probably an issue of poorly chosen words, but compare > fourteen months later I shot a man and unfortunately caused his death. with > fourteen months later, I shot and killed a man. The way that it's currently written sounds like an accident: "I, a victim of PTSD, shot a man and, in a bizarre twist of events, he died from it". The passive voice there paints a disconnection between the cause and the effect. Of course, judging a man's life from two sentences is nonsense. It just so happens that those two sentences are very unfortunate. But that's on the editor.
- austhrow743 7y ago
  Yeah his choice of language there could just as easily be applied to a hunting accident. Super minimising of his activities.
- Carpetsmoker 7y ago
  At the same time, people are the product of our environment, so ignoring that context would also be foolish. Of course, it's easier to blame a child and sentence him to two decades of prison instead of actually fixing the urban hellholes they grew up in, so we end up with years of solitary confinement and these kind of comments on HN :-/
- falcor84 7y ago
  I don't quite see it that way - it reads to me as a very careful choice of words explaining that he shot the person intentionally, but did not intend for him to die. As I understand, this would be the difference between voluntary manslaughter and murder.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  it's not written in the passive voice though? in that sentence "shot" and "caused" are both active verbs with "I" as the subject. it's a bit more detached than saying "I shot and killed a man", but I don't think it shows a lack of remorse or responsibility. if anything, it emphasizes the regret at the irreversible outcome.

tda 7y ago

That is really besides the point, because this article is about the third world, or should I say medieval prison system in the USA. That system is a crime against humanity in far too many ways. It is just one of the things many Europeans just don't get why you think it's acceptible. The prison system in the USA is a major cause of crime, not a solution. No civilized country has jailed up anywhere near the percentage of the population as the USA

manigandham 7y ago
How is it a cause of crime?
- tda 7y ago
  Recidivism is very high when people get PTSD, no mental health support or any support whatsoever when they are let free after a decade or two. In civilised countries the prison systems main objective is preparing someone for the life after prison. In other countries revenge is the top priority
- QualityReboot 7y ago
  If you're a felon, you typically can't get traditional employment. For most people, it's a shorter jump to "criminal" than "consultant".
- Proziam 7y ago
  Several factors. 1. If you go to prison, innocent or otherwise, you're not getting hired afterward. This leads to desperation, desperation leads to... 2. In prison, you become socially reliant on criminals to simply get by. This results in cultural transference. Someone getting in trouble for shoplifting learns about the joys of [insert more lucrative criminal activity here]. Combine this with point 1 and you get repeat offenders who become 'hardened' criminals. Basically, they get better at crime, because crime involves skills just like everything else in life. 3. Poor prison conditions result in psychological trauma. This, in turn, leads to anti-social behavior. In short, we pay a lot of money to create better criminals who are highly motivated to commit more crimes.
- 7y ago

kick 7y ago

What does the qualifier "someone like him" mean in this context? Is getting killed by anyone not terrible? I don't see how getting killed by a former honor-roll student who left an abusive household two years before he was legally allowed to drive, had already been shot, and was left on the streets paranoid, mentally-ill and traumatized before he was even past the age of majority, is any worse than getting killed by just about anyone.

miked85 7y ago
Obviously poor phrasing on my part, I would not like to be killed by anyone.

kiba 7y ago

The state or government still have responsibility not to torture someone.

Skgqie1 7y ago

Even if that's completely true, it doesn't detract from the points made in the article. Violating human rights doesn't become acceptable just because someone is a bad person, and the American prison system doesn't become justifiable just because there are bad people there - because they're still people. Pretty much no one (under normal circumstances) wants to be killed or die. I'm not sure why you even mentioned it?