The other day, St. Petersburg police fatally shot a man with history of mental illness, who was swinging an ax at people in a park about 3 blocks from where I'm typing this. Serial killers exist, they are scary, and while I myself have some mental health issues, I find nothing offensive about basing scary stories around the concept of madness. Fear of mental illness, or the ill themselves, is often the backbone of comic book villains, horror movies, and haunted houses at Halloween events. This fear is natural, and while stigmatizing ALL mental patients as violent is incorrect, the ones they put in straitjackets are the ones who ARE violent, a threat to themselves or others, so what's wrong with using that imagery to frighten people? If the Joker where real, you would be afraid of him, right? Scary costumes reflect the fears of a people, the nightmares that plague them, the terrors that keep them up at night. While it would be in poor taste to make a Taliban costume, the fact is, that is something people are afraid of, and with good reason. People SHOULD be afraid if the see someone in an orange jumpsuit coming towards them, or their children. The people who are required to wear such things ARE dangerous. So why be offended by a costume that is MEANT to be scary, when it's based on something or someone who IS scary?