What mass shooters want, and how to stop them

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Yoda

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The WSJ published a thoughtful piece on mass shootings that is worth a read. Its main conclusions focuses on things that I suspect many of us here would agree with (I.e., avoiding sensational reporting), but the article goes further and provides some good rationale for that action and cites some studies that tend to support it. Overall, a very good article with no sensationalism of it own.


Here's the link:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303309504579181702252120052

- - - Yoda
 
I think that's an over-generalization. There was just a mass shooting last night at a teen party here in Houston. I don't know the details yet, but it didn't seem to be 'I want attention'-type shooting.
 
But the criminologists and psychologists who study mass killings aren't so baffled. While news reports often define mass shootings solely by body count, researchers instead look at qualitative traits like the psychology of the perpetrator, his relationship to the victims and how he carries out the crime.
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Bingo! Body count alone isn't the way to define a mass shooting when the type of shooting is the Columbine/Newtown type of shooting.
 
Thanks for the link. Interesting read.

But I doubt the media will self-censor. There would always be a few outlets online that would jump on the story, and the big outlets won't want to yield the ratings. And then there is the political motivation to the coverage ...

Still, increased focus on the psychology (as in this article) may check some of the fixation on the hardware.

Check that ... an anti-gun partisan could take the point on self-styling to argue for bans on styles of weapons -- absurd as that is.
 
This is not a new idea. really.

Cramer, Clayton E. (Winter, 1993-94). "Ethical Problems of Mass Murder Coverage in the Mass Media". Journal of Mass Media Ethics 9 (1): 26–42

My summary of one point Cramer made:
17 Jan 1989 Patrick Purdy drove up to Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton, California and entered a playground during recess and used a semi-auto AK rifle to kill 5 children, wound 29 other children and a teacher. He then killed himself with a handgun.

Purdy's murders were used as the centerpiece of a campaign to ban "assualt weapons" and given wide publicity. (It is claimed that the publicity about Purdy's crimes spurred a 1989 executive order banning imports of semi-auto military rifles and the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban.)

A mental patient, Joseph Wesbecker, clipped articles on Purdy's crimes and went out and bought the guns named in the article to copycat Purdy's crimes and presumably his infamy. 14 Sep 1989 he used a semi-auto AK military rifle to kill 8 people, wound 13. Then like his role model Purdy, he committed suicide with a handgun.

A similar but less formal study in Australia promoted the idea that mass publicity inspired copycats in these cases.
 
There was just a mass shooting last night at a teen party here in Houston. I don't know the details yet, but it didn't seem to be 'I want attention'-type shooting.
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I haven't seen that news story yet, want to bet that drugs and/or gangs are involved?


But I doubt the media will self-censor.
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I happened to catch some of early the Fox News coverage of the LA Airport TSA shooter and they flatly stated they refused to release his name, so maybe someone is starting to understand. Of course that didn't stop anyone else from doing so.
 
Politicians are the ones who coined "never let a tragedy go to waste." But the media take it to heart. Blood sells newspapers, magazines, whatever they are selling. When Newton happened, all the talking head news outlets were falling over themselves trying to learn how many dead and wounded that they all missed key facts that are still questioned such as what was the weapon recovered from the car: AR or shotgun? Who was the "second suspected gunman" in the woods? And so on.

I do not own a subscription to any newspaper or news magazine. The only newspaper I get in the mail is a free county newspaper where the most violent story was some teens celebrating homecoming had an illegal bon fire. I was at my mechanic a few weeks ago and the TV was on the TODAY show. I am shocked at what even passes for "news" in the morning.
 
herrwalther said:
Politicians are the ones who coined "never let a tragedy go to waste." But the media take it to heart.
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Bingo. And I wouldn't put it past the worst of the worst in the media to be secretly thrilled that their calling mass killers' weapons "assualt weapons," "Bushmasters," etc. might encourage the next would-be killer to choose an AR pattern rifle for their misdeeds.

wsj said:
Massacres also would not be nearly so lethal without the widespread availability of guns and high-capacity magazines designed more for offense than for defense.
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Oh boy. Can you cite statistics to support this statement, Mr. Schulman? I thought not.
 
I read that in the WSJ. The writer makes a point, but it's not like a giant surprise or anything. Pretty certain a big hunk of them are just children wanting attention in a particularly deadly way, and of course ignoring does work for such situations. I was going to mention, the writer does appear anti-2nd and the high cap mag part almost seemed gratuitous.
 
Mass shooters generally want easy targets. Being armed and offering resistance seems to effectively counter such attacks. Does something else work BETTER?
 
"The article admits that there are different types of "mass shootings." They are talking about the Columbine-Virginia Tech-Newtown types."

Gotta love social statistics and academia;
"There are many incidents which don't fit our conclusions; but we aren't talking about those, so our claims remain valid" :banghead:

Oh, and "additional research will be required to validate these findings, regardless of the level of validation and re-validation that has occurred previously" :D

Call me crazy, but it seems to me that most mass shooters' intent is to harm as many people as possible, by whatever means seems most effective to their addled minds. Invariably, they retain enough logic to recognize their efforts will be more "successful" where the targets cannot resist them. Figures.

I found these to be the most interesting quotes;
"the literature does not reflect a strong link with serious mental illness."
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Suggesting that, yet again, the people demanding action in the name of protection are missing the mark. Now, instead of disarming everyone to disarm a few (maybe), we will seek to psychically predict the actions of everyone to interdict a few (maybe). :banghead:

The "gist" of the article seems to say that mass-shootings are not a manifestation of irrational thought borne from a psychotic mind (i.e. "I have to kill all these talking banana-people"), so much as improper but rational behavior from a sociopathic individual working from a flawed set of circumstances (i.e. "I have to get revenge and redeem myself"). Seems to me that most of the tests we would use to find these guys will miss them. They still retain enough of their minds to know cause & effect, right vs wrong, what will get them caught, the most efficient way to achieve their objective, and how to hide their intentions. Hardly an individual "incapable of understanding the charges against them." It sounds more like these individuals really are nothing more than ordinary criminals, but working under extraordinary circumstances; supervillians. Sounds hokey, sure, but that's what they strive to be (some more overtly than others)

The only way to catch them would be to intercept them during the protracted (rational logic-based) planning period of their story arc. The only way to do that is with an omniscient police state that monitors abnormal but legal and harmless behavior, and then issues punishment for what are still thought crimes. The article's suggestion is that the news media conspire to essentially cover up the existence of mass shootings in the hope that troubled young men in the future will never conceive what a "blaze of glory" is and, I guess, only kill themselves in the future. Yep; that stands up to scrutiny :rolleyes:.

Maybe they should also stop covering all political discourse in the hope that our leaders can get along better behind a veil of secrecy, and stop shooting their mouths off in "a blaze of glory."

TCB
 
Investigators usually find they had a lifelong fascination with weaponry, warfare, and military and survivalist culture. Their methodical comportment during the act is part of this styling.
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Hmm. I suspect you'd find more'n a few folks with the same "fascination" on internet gun forums.
 
Can we then conclude that most mass murderers frequent the gun forums? I'm sure the shrinks would LIKE to believe that, whether validation is ever found or not.
 
tuj said:
I think that's an over-generalization. There was just a mass shooting last night at a teen party here in Houston. I don't know the details yet, but it didn't seem to be 'I want attention'-type shooting.
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Ummm, "2" is a "mass"?
 
When I was a boy (came out of high school in 1966...) mass shootings were still mostly in our future. The first hint of what was to come that I remember was the "Texas tower" shooting on a college campus. Since then (and coinciding with a change in how we deal with mental problems) we've seen a consistent rise in numbers and frequency...

I've been considering this for some years starting as a young cop in the early seventies all the way until I retired out and left the field in 1995... I'm not very well educated but read enough to have a grasp of the basics of human behavior.... and as usual most of our problems are self inflicted. With the rise of of personal freedoms, the serious breakdown of the standard family unit (and all the social contracts it promoted that began to disappear along with the family unit....) our society began to "reform" mental health programs and rules. As a result we've got our share of folks at large who really need to be in custodial care but are actually living among us - and along with it we really lack the ability to predict when an individual with emotional or mental problems begins to be a real danger to those around him or her... I've always believed that most mass shootings are in fact a form of "aggressive suicide" where an individual is intent on self destruction - but intends or at least tries to take down as many people with him as possible (note that I can't name one female shooter -but I'm certain that day is coming...).

By the way I don't include gang related or juvenile shootings in the above category since most of those are a direct consequence of social problems and most of the shooters involved didn't plan the act at all... it was much more a consequence of the lifestyle they were living and the lack of any family supervision (think Chicago as a prime example...). There are exceptions of course - Sandy Hook comes to mind...

Although the media may have some responsibility for widely disseminating the popular thoughts about these incidents - in reality the best they've ever done is show us just how bad a condition our society is in - in my opinion.

The area with the most room for improvement (particularly in preventing these kind of incidents) is where mental health professionals, leaders of society (including those in organized religion), and law enforcement come together and find a way to predict those likely to be a problem and figure out the best way to deal with each individual before they go to that ultimate act of self destruction. Surprisingly, one institution that's actually made quite a bit of progress is the Postal Service from what I've read. Their personnel policies have aided them in identifying and dealing with potential violent employees before things get out of hand. As a result you just don't hear about someone "going postal" any more (I hope).

This entire topic is one we'll be dealing with for years unless our society actually sits down and figures out practical ways to deal with potentially violent persons before they act out.... It's one of the real challenges we face.
 
DSM-IV said:
Amok
A dissociative episode characterized by a period of brooding followed by an
outburst of violent, aggressive, or homicidal behavior directed at people and objects.
The episode tends to be precipitated by a perceived slight or insult and seems to be prevalent only among males. The episode is often accompanied by persecutory ideas,automatism, amnesia, exhaustion, and a return to premorbid state following the episode.Some instances of amok may occur during a brief psychotic episode or constitute the onset or an exacerbation of a chronic psychotic process
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Hmmmm..
 
Sam Cade said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by DSM-IV
Amok
A dissociative episode characterized by a period of brooding followed by an
outburst of violent, aggressive, or homicidal behavior directed at people and objects.
The episode tends to be precipitated by a perceived slight or insult and seems to be prevalent only among males. The episode is often accompanied by persecutory ideas,automatism, amnesia, exhaustion, and a return to premorbid state following the episode.Some instances of amok may occur during a brief psychotic episode or constitute the onset or an exacerbation of a chronic psychotic process
Hmmmm..
Click to expand...
DSM5.org said:
Search DSM-5 "amok" ... No results matching your search were found
Click to expand...

Hmm?
 
lemaymiami said:
When I was a boy (came out of high school in 1966...) mass shootings were still mostly in our future. The first hint of what was to come that I remember was the "Texas tower" shooting on a college campus. Since then (and coinciding with a change in how we deal with mental problems) we've seen a consistent rise in numbers and frequency...

I've been considering this for some years starting as a young cop in the early seventies all the way until I retired out and left the field in 1995... I'm not very well educated but read enough to have a grasp of the basics of human behavior.... and as usual most of our problems are self inflicted. With the rise of of personal freedoms, the serious breakdown of the standard family unit (and all the social contracts it promoted that began to disappear along with the family unit....) our society began to "reform" mental health programs and rules. As a result we've got our share of folks at large who really need to be in custodial care but are actually living among us - and along with it we really lack the ability to predict when an individual with emotional or mental problems begins to be a real danger to those around him or her... I've always believed that most mass shootings are in fact a form of "aggressive suicide" where an individual is intent on self destruction - but intends or at least tries to take down as many people with him as possible (note that I can't name one female shooter -but I'm certain that day is coming...).

By the way I don't include gang related or juvenile shootings in the above category since most of those are a direct consequence of social problems and most of the shooters involved didn't plan the act at all... it was much more a consequence of the lifestyle they were living and the lack of any family supervision (think Chicago as a prime example...). There are exceptions of course - Sandy Hook comes to mind...

Although the media may have some responsibility for widely disseminating the popular thoughts about these incidents - in reality the best they've ever done is show us just how bad a condition our society is in - in my opinion.

The area with the most room for improvement (particularly in preventing these kind of incidents) is where mental health professionals, leaders of society (including those in organized religion), and law enforcement come together and find a way to predict those likely to be a problem and figure out the best way to deal with each individual before they go to that ultimate act of self destruction. Surprisingly, one institution that's actually made quite a bit of progress is the Postal Service from what I've read. Their personnel policies have aided them in identifying and dealing with potential violent employees before things get out of hand. As a result you just don't hear about someone "going postal" any more (I hope).

This entire topic is one we'll be dealing with for years unless our society actually sits down and figures out practical ways to deal with potentially violent persons before they act out.... It's one of the real challenges we face.
Click to expand...

I'm not so sure I agree with you about institutionalizing people like we used to. For one, with today's psychology manuals many of us would be considered to have some sort of "mental illness". I don't want the medical industry determining if I am a free man or not (not to mention taking away my right to legally bear arms).

Two if you look I'll bet (just a guess) the rise of psychoactive pharmaceuticals can also be correlated to the rise of mass murder events. Most of these state right on the package that they can create the exact symptoms that many shooters exhibited. And of course we all know practically all of these killers especially in the last 2 decades were on pretty heavy doses of psychoactives (only one exception I've heard of). So ridiculous that many depression meds have shown to have about as much (or a tiny bit more) positive effect as placebo and yet they are given out like candy at doctors offices.
 
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As an aside, the DSM V doesn't recognize "bi-polar" disorder ... There goes another excuse for frequent misbehavior.
 
Any such act is selfish and self seeking. Ego is king and reality is bent, requiring a dynamic attitude/ behavioral adjustment. Simple.

Feral is as feral does.
 
Old Dog said:
As an aside, the DSM V doesn't recognize "bi-polar" disorder ... There goes another excuse for frequent misbehavior.
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Well, no.
Bi-polar and Related Disorders start on page 123 of the DSM-V. What has changed is the diagnostic criteria.


DSM-5 said:
Bipolar and related disorders are separated from the depressive disorders in DSM-5 and placed between the chapters on schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders and depressive disorders in recognition of their place as a bridge between the two diagnostic classes in terms of symptomatology, family history, and genetics. The diagnoses included in this chapter are bipolar I disorder, bipolar II disorder, cyclothymic disorder, substance/ medication-induced bipolar and related disorder, bipolar and related disorder due to another medical condition, other specified bipolar and related disorder, and unspecified bipolar and related disorder
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We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread. ;)
 
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