In April 1999, we were all stunned by
the news that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had attacked and killed students at
Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado and, more recently, in December
2012, that Adam Lanza, after killing his mother at home, then massacred
twenty-six staff and students at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,
Connecticut. These events evoke dread of potential events, a quest to understand
why they occurred, and ways to avoid further comparable
killings.
Peter Langman has authored “School
Shooters: Understanding High School, College, and Adult Perpetrators.” It offers
very little comfort, but only because this psychologist, widely recognized for
his expertise, is refreshingly honest.
“Many people seek to reduce school
shootings to a bite-sized explanatory chunk, but the phenomenon defies easy
analysis,” says Langman. “There is no one cause of school shootings, there is no
one intervention that will prevent school shootings, and there is no one profile
of a school shooter.”
He offers a wealth of information
about forty-eight shooters He divides them into “Psychopathic shooters” whom he
describes as “profoundly narcissistic, arrogant, and entitled; they lacked
empathy, and met their needs at other’s expense” and ”psychotic shooters” who
“suffered from schizophrenia or a related disorder. They were out of touch with
reality to varying degrees, experiencing hallucinations or
delusions.”
“Unlike the psychopathic and psychotic
shooters, who generally came from well-functioning, intact families, traumatized
shooters endured chronic abuse as children. They grew up in violent, severely
dysfunctional homes.” Most fell into the first two categories.
I would like to offer the reader some
comfort that school shooters can be “spotted” in advance, but in most the cases
that Langman cites, they looked like everyone else in any school. Only if one of
them was to confide his plan was there any opportunity to intervene and then
only if he was reported.
Among the psychopathic category “at
least 75 percent (nine out of twelve) had body issues. Many of these physical
characteristics had a direct bearing on perceived manliness, including short
stature, thin build, chest deformity, and fear of sterility” leading Langham to
suggest a link between feeling weak or damaged and extreme narcissism. It is
widely believed that bullying is linked to these events, but Langham notes that
while about forty percent were harassed only one targeted a bully. While there
is concern these days about bullying in schools, it is mostly due to a
heightened awareness, not because there is more or less of it than has ever
existed.
One thing does stand out, however,
“nearly all shooters had bad educational experiences, including academic
difficulties (failing classes, repeated grades, not graduating) or disciplinary
problems…at least 92 percent had negative academic or disciplinary experiences.”
And then there’s this: “At least 38 percent of shooters had relatives who worked
or volunteered in schools.”
Another common factor was that “at
least half of the perpetrators engaged in substance abuse (illegal drugs,
prescription drugs, or alcohol.) In addition, “at least 42 percent of the
shooters had a history of legal troubles, including arrests, contempt of court,
and loss of a driver’s license.”
“Many shooters had trouble getting or
holding jobs.” This was particularly true of the older shooters. Charles
Whitman, an American engineering student at the University of Texas, gained
infamy when in August 1966 he killed his wife and mother in their homes and
later that day went to the Austin campus where he killed sixteen people and
wounded 32 others over the course of ninety minutes, firing from the observation
deck of the main building before being killed by an Austin police
officer.
To academic and employment problems,
add romantic failures. “Most shooters either failed to establish any romantic or
sexual relationships or else suffered breakups or rejections that contributed to
their anguish and anger.”
It should surprise no one that a
number of the shooters “had specific role models for violence, including serial
killers, mass murders, and other school shooters.” Most of them were psychotic,
whereas the psychopaths “felt no need to attach themselves to a source of power;
they were the source of
power.”
Out of this densely documented book
Langham concludes “There is no one way to prevent school shootings.” What also
emerges is the fact that “Most school shooters leave a trail of warning signs
that are either not noticed or not responded
to.”
What the shootings are not about is
gun ownership. Many
of the shooters came from families that owned guns and used them for hunting or
sport shooting. They had little reason to regard them as instruments with which
to kill people other than their own twisted psychological
interpretation.
What I came away with was the
conclusion that the shooters are people we would all easily identify as
“losers.” Beyond that, there is no specific way of identifying them, only
suspicions of their capability to do the
unthinkable.
© Alan Caruba, 2015
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