Monday, August 5, 2019

"My Whole Life I Have Been Preparing for a Future that Currently Doesn't Exist"

https://twitter.com/aimeeterese/status/1158058614520598530


















If you want a glimpse into the motivations of the typical mass shooter, see this Op-Ed in the LA Times: we have studied every mass shooting since 1966. Here’s what we’ve learned about the shooters.
For two years, we’ve been studying the life histories of mass shooters in the United States for a project funded by the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. We’ve built a database dating back to 1966 of every mass shooter who shot and killed four or more people in a public place, and every shooting incident at schools, workplaces, and places of worship since 1999. We’ve interviewed incarcerated perpetrators and their families, shooting survivors and first responders. We’ve read media and social media, manifestos, suicide notes, trial transcripts and medical records.

Our goal has been to find new, data-driven pathways for preventing such shootings. Although we haven’t found that mass shooters are all alike, our data do reveal four commonalities among the perpetrators of nearly all the mass shootings we studied.

First, the vast majority of mass shooters in our study experienced early childhood trauma and exposure to violence at a young age. The nature of their exposure included parental suicide, physical or sexual abuse, neglect, domestic violence, and/or severe bullying. The trauma was often a precursor to mental health concerns, including depression, anxiety, thought disorders or suicidality.

Second, practically every mass shooter we studied had reached an identifiable crisis point in the weeks or months leading up to the shooting. They often had become angry and despondent because of a specific grievance. For workplace shooters, a change in job status was frequently the trigger. For shooters in other contexts, relationship rejection or loss often played a role. Such crises were, in many cases, communicated to others through a marked change in behavior, an expression of suicidal thoughts or plans, or specific threats of violence.

Third, most of the shooters had studied the actions of other shooters and sought validation for their motives. People in crisis have always existed. But in the age of 24-hour rolling news and social media, there are scripts to follow that promise notoriety in death. Societal fear and fascination with mass shootings partly drives the motivation to commit them. Hence, as we have seen in the last week, mass shootings tend to come in clusters. They are socially contagious. Perpetrators study other perpetrators and model their acts after previous shootings. Many are radicalized online in their search for validation from others that their will to murder is justified.

Fourth, the shooters all had the means to carry out their plans. Once someone decides life is no longer worth living and that murdering others would be a proper revenge, only means and opportunity stand in the way of another mass shooting. Is an appropriate shooting site accessible? Can the would-be shooter obtain firearms? In 80% of school shootings, perpetrators got their weapons from family members, according to our data. Workplace shooters tended to use handguns they legally owned. Other public shooters were more likely to acquire them illegally.

The authors are overly optimistic, I think, about the prevention strategies they propose. Once a 21-year old man has reached the conclusion that he has no future, and that he is willing to die in a pointless display of revenge against society at large, he'll find the opportunity and instrumentality to carry out his decision.

If you're surprised at such hopelessness, just look at the skyrocketing 'deaths of despair' in America today. There's a large economic piece to that, in that the globalized information economy has no use for what used to be called the working class. Like an aboriginal people found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country, their social betters expect them to isolate themselves in their rustbelt towns until they die or get a U-Haul. And there's a spiritual piece, too, in that the mostly nihilistic culture in which those 21 year olds were raised gives them no good reason not to do what they want.

Geezers my age can remember the last part of the 'peace and prosperity' era that began with Eisenhower. The '60s and '70s were actually awful in many ways, but you still had the first-hand knowledge that society had been better once, so it could get better again.

But if you're a 21 year old today with little or no society that isn't hostile to you, well, what exactly is the point of trying to avoid despair?

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