Vegas killer: Stop demonizing mental illness

It is time to look in the mirror when tossing out words like “demented” and “pure evil.” It can only be sickness, and I would think by now, demons and evil have been removed from the physician’s desk reference.

Malignant are those who bow to the power of the purse, where windfall supersedes human life. That is the personification of evil, not the Las Vegas shooter, Stephen Paddock.

He was sick, and his life and the lives he took ended in a biological tragedy.

Paddock was biologically ill; something broke in his brain; something inside his head went awry, and it could be explainable, and it could be curable, and it could be enlightening, unlike demonizing.

We can do better than the dark age practice of moralizing mental illness.

This story was originally published October 4, 2017 at 4:43 PM with the headline "Vegas killer: Stop demonizing mental illness."