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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAre Mass Shooters & Suicide Bombers Similar? What Drives Suicidal Mass Killers
For years, the conventional wisdom has been that suicide terrorists are rational political actors, while suicidal rampage shooters are mentally disturbed loners. But the two groups have far more in common than has been recognized.
Over the last three years, I have examined interviews, case studies, suicide notes, martyrdom videos and witness statements and found that suicide terrorists are indeed suicidal in the clinical sense which contradicts what many psychologists and political scientists have long asserted. Although suicide terrorists may share the same beliefs as the organizations whose propaganda they spout, they are primarily motivated by the desire to kill and be killed just like most rampage shooters.
In fact, we should think of many rampage shooters as nonideological suicide terrorists. In some cases, they claim to be fighting for a cause neo-Nazism, eugenics, masculine supremacy or an antigovernment revolution but, as with suicide terrorists, their actions usually stem from something much deeper and more personal.
3 factors setting these killers apart.
1. struggling w/mental health problems influencing desire to die
2. deep sense of vicitimization
3. desire for fame
snip
It is tempting to look back at recent history and wonder whats wrong with America our culture and our policies. But underneath the pain, the rage and the desire to die, rampage shooters like Mr. Lanza are remarkably similar to aberrant mass killers including suicide terrorists in other countries. The difference rests in how they are shaped by cultural forces and which destructive behaviors they seek to copy. The United States has had more than its share of rampage shootings, but only a few suicide attacks. Other countries are regularly plagued by suicidal explosions, but rarely experience a school shooting.
Adam Lankford, an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of Alabama, is the author of the forthcoming book The Myth of Martyrdom: What Really Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters, and Other Self-Destructive Killers
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/opinion/what-drives-suicidal-mass-killers.html?_r=0
Publiuus
(31 posts)Unfortunately this aspect is what's missing from the debate. Surely having access to a firearm doesn't drive one to kill. Hammers are used in many homicides. Possessing a hammer drives no one to kill no more than it drives someone to build a house. People who do these things will find away. If Lanza needed to use homemade pipe bombs he likely would have - and I shudder to think what the results would have been. We should focus of what causes evil doers to commit evil. Years ago wasn't society able to hospitalize mentally I'll people? Whatever happened to that?
Response to Publiuus (Reply #1)
Fresh_Start This message was self-deleted by its author.
rustydog
(9,186 posts)In China, what anti-control advocates like to quote (partially) is a crazed man stabbed dozens of kids. They neglect to add the victims survived that attack.
We regulate the air, water, our vehicles, homes, businesses, but for some goddamn reason, there cannot be controls on the sale and manufacture and ownership of firearms...completely stupid.
Publiuus
(31 posts)There are plenty of firearms regulations. None of them worked. It's illegal to posses a firearm in a school. It's illegal for the mentally unsound to possess a firearm. It's illegal to brandish a weapon. It's illegal to shoot people. Despite these regulations, the shooting still happened. What if he chose to commit a Timothy McVey style truck bombing? If he didn't have access to a firearm he would have found a way. This is something we must address as a society.