Also, if the kid was determined to be competent to stand trial and evaluated as not mentally ill....then we can't assume that this was caused by mental illness. Not everyone who falls down a rabbit hole and commits an atrocity is crazy or mentally ill.

We don't give terrorists, for example, an excuse just because they got radicalized. Those murders were politically and religiously motivated.

What's the difference here? Just because we don't understand it, doesn't mean his motivations aren't political.

I would argue that nihilism is political.

This kid strikes me as more of a homegrown terrorist than a mentally ill kid. At least, thus far.