I saw the news that Jason Eaton was found guilty of attempted murder for shooting three Palestinian college students in Vermont.

As I was watching the news, my first thought was that no matter how much mental health issues someone has, they cannot shift all responsibility for shooting someone on the street to their mental illness.

The incident occurred during the Thanksgiving holiday in 2023. At that time, three 20-year-old Palestinian college students were simply walking down the street in Burlington, Vermont.

They were mixing English and Arabic while talking among friends, and two of them were wearing keffiyehs, a traditional Palestinian scarf.

Then Eaton shot at them. All three were injured, and Hisham Awartani suffered a serious spinal injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down.

He is a twenty-year-old college student who went to spend Thanksgiving with friends and ended up needing a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

However, what came out during the trial is even more astonishing.

Eaton claimed that the CIA and the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad were giving him orders through FM radio.

He even said that God commanded him to protect his Jewish neighbors. In short, this person is not sane.

In fact, his lawyers argued that he had been suffering from various mental health issues for a long time and claimed that he was in a state where he could not be held legally responsible.

I do not intend to take mental illness lightly. There are certainly people who have lost their ability to judge reality and need treatment.

But the important issue here is different.

Having a mental illness does not mean that a person is completely unaware of their actions.

This was also pointed out by the prosecution. When the police arrived, Eaton was nervous and kept asking for a lawyer.

While he mentioned that there was a gun in the house, he did not talk about other weapons confirmed to have been used in the crime.

Ultimately, the jurors listened to a week of testimony and expert opinions and did not accept the insanity defense.

I believe that the American judicial system should uphold basic principles in such matters.

These days, when a major crime occurs, there is always a search for causes.

Gun issues, mental illness, social isolation, political conflict, racial issues.

Of course, all are important. Finding causes can help reduce future crimes.

However, finding causes and absolving someone of responsibility are completely different issues.

If a person pulls the trigger on an innocent person, the first thing to consider is whether that person understood their actions.

If they had legal capacity, then it is right for them to take responsibility afterward.

And living in America, one must also be cautious about hastily labeling something as a hate crime without sufficient evidence. In fact, in this case, hate crime charges were not filed.

I believe this is what the rule of law looks like.

The law should not change based on who the victim is, nor should the standards suddenly loosen based on the circumstances of the perpetrator.

Pitying circumstances are one thing, and responsibility for crime is another.

Living in LA, I see all kinds of incidents. And every time a major event occurs, politicians try to steer the narrative in their desired direction.

However, from the perspective of ordinary citizens, what we want is not that complicated.

A safe society where we can walk the streets, a society where crimes are properly prosecuted, and a society where victims are not wronged.