Maine Shooting: Inconvenient Facts

The shooter reported hearing voices and is, most likely, suffering from schizophrenia. The Daily Mail notes that "while the rate [of schizophrenia] is around one in 100 in the general population, more than a third of America's mass shooters suffered from the condition, according to gun violence research and prevention organization The Violence Project." 

    Psychologist Dr Elinor Greenberg said that while Card may fit the bill for a psychotic disorder, his age is older than the typical onset.

    She told DailyMail.com: ‘We know he was hospitalized at 40, and the onset of schizophrenia in men would be 16 to 20.

    'So what happened between then and now? I'm trying to account for how this guy got from 20 to 40 without being hospitalized before last summer… Something disturbed his functioning severely. So that's the big question – what's going on, and why the violence?’ 

The article goes on to explain that "[s]chizophrenia is what is known as a polygenic disorder, meaning it involves the interaction of multiple genes," but there is more going on than just the genetics.

    Traumatic events can trigger the onset of schizophrenia, which typically occurs in late teen years to early 20s for men and late 20s to early 30s for women. The brain changes a lot during puberty, and those changes could trigger the on-switch for the disease.

    Scientists also believe, in addition to external factors like trauma combined with genetic factors, that a chemical imbalance in the brain is to blame. 

    They have been particularly interested in serotonin, which helps regulate mood, dopamine, which drives desire and motivation, and glutamate, which is important to memory, cognition, and mood regulation.

    It has also been shown that 30 percent of schizophrenia cases among men aged 21 to 30 are related to heavy and problematic use of marijuana, which is legal for medicinal and recreational use in Maine.