My column today, by the way, was on the bizarre fact that mental illness is the only disease that has an influential lobby devoted to not treating it.

Also, I can’t recommend highly enough this Jennifer Rubin post, in which she speaks to Dr. Stephen Marder, a highly respected expert on schizophrenia:

Although the percentage of schizophrenics who commit violent crimes is small, their violence tends to be more “bizarre, unpredictable and with a focus often on celebrities,” according to Marder. That is because of the nature of the disease. Schizophrenics are sometimes plagued by “self-referential thinking,” which converts ordinary events or experiences into episodes with personalized, “special meaning.” For a schizophrenic, the TV is not merely on. The TV is speaking to him. This makes the illness incredibly difficult for “tormented” family members who are trying to help the loved one, only to see interactions converted into diabolical threats and dangers in the patient’s mind.
In that regard, an interaction with a politician or celebrity can set a schizophrenic on “a mission.” Marder declined to speak on the Loughner case specifically. When I gave a hypothetical, “Would an interaction with a famous figure who gives the schizophrenic a disappointing response be a trigger for violence?” He answered without hesitation, “yes.”