[piercehawkeye45]

This is just one of my 'rabbit hole' runaway thoughts and would appreciate other perspectives and discussion on the topic. As a note, I believe that every mass killer has their own personal reason and story for their pathetic, horrible acts, but I do think we can make some generalizations.


Since Aurora and Newtown, there has been plenty of discussion of what factors are causing these school shootings (or mass killings in general) and more importantly, how can we reduce them. Not surprising, the usual suspects have been mentioned over and over: too many guns, too few guns, mental health issues, video games, media, etc.

However, I think it clear that these "solutions" can be checked with a simple thought experiment. Since these shootings really only occur in the United States, what possible factors are unique to America? This quickly eliminates video games, media, mental health issues, and lowers the argument for too many guns (there are other countries that have guns while very few if any school shootings). These leads me to believe that this has something to do with our culture (duh!).

Now, I don't believe there is any specific cultural factor in the US that leads to shootings or that it is solely cultural factors. I see it more in the sense that there are external conditions found everywhere (mental health issues, bullying, etc.) that makes a person unstable and something with American culture pushes these people over the edge. If I had a guess, it would be some combination of a need for "greatness" (I think we are only country where we tell our kids that they are expected to be successful...I can go into more detail about this later), copy cats, and pride issues. There are probably others as well.

To expand on copy cats, maybe its just my perspective (when the media started covering them), but it seems that these mass shootings have been occurring since Columbine or a bit before. It also seems that there is an "arms race" between some of these shooters. Each shooter using more powerful weapons and armor. This either implies that a killer's unstable thoughts are "validated" by seeing someone else do what they were thinking or there is a "glorification" issue. On the other hand, the first argument does not seem to hold since people in other countries besides America hear about the shootings here and do not act on any unstable feelings.


This leads me to my next question: why use guns? One of the arguments I've heard for banning assault rifles is that it is the most efficient way to kill people. I disagree with this. As an engineer, I can think of multiple way to kill more people and create more damage. However, I believe shooting someone is the most direct and emotional way of killing a large group of people. Unlike poisoning, bombs, etc., you need to look at the person and you need to pull the trigger to kill them. It is your direct action that is killing them, not some chemical substance. Also, it is one of the most emotional shocking ways of killing people. 30 students dieing from food poisoning isn't going to get the same amount of media attention as 30 students dieing from an assault rifle. It could be very well that these killers are trying to make some fucked up statement and they know shooting is the best way to "promote" their statement. So, are our mass killers sticking with guns due to a lack of creativity, the "emotional satisfaction", emotional shock, or some combination?

If it is for lack of creativity, then we have much bigger issues to worry about then guns but if it is for the "emotional satisfaction" or emotional shock, this can hopefully lead to some idea about the reasoning or what is pushing these people over the edge. I don't have any direct answers to what are causing these shootings or solutions, but these are at least my thoughts.