And now we go live to the BBC website:
BREAKING NEWS
Attack not an act of terror
Danish police say there is no indication that Sunday’s shooting was an act of terror.
The suspect had a history of mental issues, they say.
The city’s police chief, Soeren Thomassen, says the suspect was known to mental health services.
“Our suspect is also known among psychiatric services, beyond that I do not wish to comment,” Thomassen says.
Straightforward factual reporting to which I have no objection but – and my loyal reader knows what is coming next – the shooter was obviously mentally ill, which of course explains everything.
Doubtless, I am well known to ‘mental health services’, too, because I have been using their services more on than off since 1969 but for some reason I don’t tend to venture out to shopping centres to blow people’s brains out with a gun. On the contrary, mental people like me are far more likely to harm themselves than anyone else but that is clearly not what you are likely to read, even in the most responsible media outlets.
I don’t know how stories like these register with people who don’t know the first thing about poor mental health. God knows I’ve come across enough people who think there is no such thing as poor mental health like, frankly, my family when I was growing up. If you’re working through a news website and you see a story about some bloke who goes round shooting people and the subsequent explanation is, “He’s mentally ill”, then maybe you’ll think I’ll be fully-armed in Cabot Circus later on because I’m going through one of my regular dips, but I won’t be. The very last thing want to do is see anyone, never mind killing people. I think I deserve pain and distress than anyone else. And this kind of thing makes me feel guilty. The shooter was one of us.
It’s good to talk about your mental health, except maybe after a tragic shooting event. I’m telling you all this not to get kind, supportive messages on social media, even though they are appreciated, but more to point out that actually us mental people generally don’t kill people. We would much rather die ourselves when things are really grim. I don’t want to die today or anything, but I don’t want anyone else to, either.
