I don’t think I am cherry-picking facts to support my perceptions; rather facts I have read or observed over the years have contributed to my perceptions. I also disagree with the analogy of fearing all Christians because of the Oklahoma City bombing. Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, and Michael Fortier were not practicing Christians (McVeigh even said his religion was science), nor did they cite Christian scripture as justification or basis for what they did. Unfortunately, one of the reasons we are in Afghanistan now is that some—not all—Muslims thought 9/11 was justified based on Muslim scriptures—parts perhaps that they cherry-picked—and it seems that Maj. Hasan and others in our armed forces may have done so as well.

Caitlin raised the question what if he were fundamentalist Jew or Christian. If we had been attacked by fundamentalist Jews or Christians citing Torah or Bible as justification, and if soldiers of these faiths murdered their fellow soldiers while crying out Adonai hu ha elohim or What would Jesus do—if there were a pattern of incidents like this, I would want that raised as well. When I read in the paper that a doctor who performs abortions has been gunned down in cold blood, I don’t want the media to start looking at every possible reason the killer might have acted but leave out any facts that might imply he did it because he believed his Christian faith demanded it, because that might be “bigoted.” And that is what I was objecting to in my original comment.

I looked up Vicarious Trauma (VT) on the Internet as I’d never heard of it, and what I read described symptoms such as burnout, depression, and blaming the victim/patient. I did not see anything that indicated a psychologist might engage in mass murder. If there are such cases, I’d be interested in learning about them.

But this is all tired, familiar territory in American political discussions these days, so I think our dialogue is probably at a dead end. But I do want to say the science behind VT is pretty strong, so too is the experience. After 9/11 I helped run an organization that provided free mental and behavioral health care to first responders and their families. Helping protect our network of volunteer clinicians from compassion fatigue was the highest priority.