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Killer on Campus
The savage slayings at the University of Florida at Gainesville in 1990 captured the nation's attention. Now these brutal murders are vividly retold in this riveting true crime novel. Original.
- GenresTrue Crime
266 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1996
20 people want to read
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June 23, 2025
Mass Shootings in America: Moving Beyond Newtown
James Alan Fox and Monica J. DeLateur
Mass shootings at a Connecticut elementary school, a Colorado movie theater, and other venues have prompted a fair number of proposals for change. Advocates for tighter gun restrictions, for expanding mental health services, for upgrading security in public places, and, even, for controlling violent entertainment have made certain assumptions about the nature of mass murder that are not necessarily valid.
This article examines a variety of myths and misconceptions about multiple homicide and mass shooters, pointing out some of the difficult realities in trying to avert these murderous rampages.
prospects for reducing the risk of mass murder are limited
Myth: Mass Murderers Snap and Kill Indiscriminately
One of the earliest systematic examinations of mass murder incidents challenged the widespread view in the popular press and professional literature that mass murderers are crazed lunatics who suddenly snap, go berserk, and kill indiscriminately (Levin & Fox, 1985). Over the past few decades, moreover, this notion has persisted, at least in the public’s mind, in large part because of the selective attention to the most extreme and unusual cases.
However, mass murder rarely involves a sudden explosion of rage. To the contrary, mass killers typically plan their assaults for days, weeks, or months (see, for example, Fox & Levin, 2012; Walkup & Rubin, 2013). These preparations include where, when, and who to kill, as well as with what weapons they will strike. These assailants are deliberate, determined to kill, with little regard for what obstacles are placed in their path.
Whatever the style of killing, the motives for mass murder are organized around five primary themes that can occur singly or in combination (Fox & Levin, 1998).
Specifically,
1 Revenge (e.g., a deeply disgruntled individual seeks payback for a host of fail-ures in career, school, or personal life)
2 Power (e.g., a “pseudo-commando” style massacre perpetrated by some mar-ginalized individual attempting to wage a personal war against society)
3 Loyalty (e.g., a devoted husband/father kills his entire family and then himself to spare them all from a miserable existence on earth and to reunite them in the hereafter)
4 Terror (e.g., a political dissident destroys government property, with several victims killed as “collateral damage,” to send a strong message to those in power)
5 Profit (e.g., a gunman executes the customers and employees at a retail store to eliminate all witnesses to a robbery).
Among these types, revenge motivation is, by far, the most commonplace (see Knoll, 2010; Leyton, 1986).
Mass murderers often see themselves as victims—victims of injustice (Bowers et al., 2010; Palermo, 1997).
They seek payback for what they perceive to be unfair treatment by targeting those they hold responsible for their mis-fortunes.
Most often, the ones to be punished are family members (an unfaithful wife and all her children) or coworkers (an overbearing boss and all his employees). In such cases, there may be a primary target (which itself can be a place, such as a company, a school, or an agency) while others are killed as surrogates, in what has been termed “murder by proxy”.
Sometimes, mass murderers target an entire category of people (e.g., women, Jews, immigrants, Whites, Blacks, etc.)
The victims may be chosen randomly, but the type of victim or the place to find them may not be. In such cases, strangers are punished just because of their class membership or group association.
The rarest form of mass murder is the completely random attack (often in a public place) committed by someone who in his or her paranoid thinking suspects that the whole world is corrupt and unfair (Petee, Padgett, & York, 1997).
The level of paranoia may be truly psychotic (e.g., God, the President, or some other powerful entity is behind a wide-ranging conspiracy) or involve a lesser form of paranoid personality disorder in which the perpetrator consistently misconstrues innocent acts or gestures by others as purposely malicious.
Even though most mass murderers deliberately target specific people or places, it is, of course, the seemingly senseless random massacres that are the most frightening to people.
After all, they can happen at any place, at any time, and to anyone—usually without warning—and, for this reason, random acts of mass murder, although the least frequent form, receive the most attention by the mass media and the public alike.
Myth: Mass Shootings Are on the Rise
The recent carnages in Newtown, Connecticut; Aurora, Colorado; and elsewhere have compelled many observers to examine the possible reasons behind the rise in mass murder. The New York Times columnist David Brooks noted the number of schizophrenics going untreated (Brooks, 2012).
Former President Bill Clinton and other gun-control advocates have pointed to the expiration of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban as the culprit, while gun-rights proponents have argued that the body counts would be lower were more Americans armed and ready to overtake an active shooter.
There is, however, one not-so-tiny flaw in all the various theories and speculations for the presumed increase in mass shootings: Mass shootings have not increased in number or in overall death toll, at least not over the past several decades.
For example, the Mother Jones news organization, having assembled a database of public mass shootings from 1982 through 2012, has reported a recent surge in incidents and fatalities, including a spike and record number of casualties in the year 2012.
It is critical to note that Mother Jones did not include all mass shootings in their analysis but instead attempted to delineate those that were senseless, random, or at least public in nature.
Mother Jones settled on several criteria for inclusion in its mass shootings database, specifically the following:
- The shooter took the lives of at least four people
- The killings were carried out by a lone shooter
- The shootings happened during a single incident and in a public place; and
- The murders were not related to armed robbery or gang activity.
By virtue of these selection rules, mass shootings involving family members were excluded, even though they too can involve large body counts.
Other massive shootings were ignored because of their relation to gang activity or some criminal enterprise.
Not only is Mother Jones’s decision to disqualify cases based on certain criteria that are hard to defend but also the criteria themselves were not necessarily applied consistently (see Fox, 2013).
According to these expanded data, over the past few decades, there have been, on average, nearly 20 mass shootings a year in the United States.
Without minimizing the pain and suffering of the hundreds of those who have been victimized in recent attacks, the facts clearly say that there has been no increase in mass shootings and certainly no epidemic.
What is abundantly clear from the full array of mass shootings is the largely random variability in the annual counts.
There have been several points in time when journalists and others have speculated about a possible epidemic in response to a flurry of high-profile shootings.
Yet, these speculations have always proven to be incorrect when subsequent years reveal more moderate levels.
Myth: Recent Mass Murders Involve Record-Setting Body Counts
If anything has increased with regard to mass murder, it is the public’s fear, anxiety, and widely held belief that the problem is getting worse (see Baldassare, Bonner, Petek, & Shrestha, 2013).
Unquestionably, this perception is linked to the style and pervasiveness of news-media coverage, owing in large part to advances in technology (Heath & Gilbert, 1996).
In 1966, when Charles Whitman opened fire from atop the 307-foot tower at the University of Texas in Austin, there were no 24-hr news stations or fleets of satellite trucks to relay images of tragedy as they unfolded. CNN wasn’t born until the 1980s, and the other major cable news outlets not until much later.
The extensive news focus on school shootings certainly had an impact on perception and fear. The same USA Today/Gallup poll found that nearly one quarter of those surveyed believed that a shooting spree such as Sandy Hook was “very likely” to occur in their own community and more than half thought that it was at least “somewhat likely”.
Myth: Violent Entertainment, Especially Video Games, Are Causally Linked to Mass Murder
Besides the imitation of notorious crimes and criminals, fictional portrayals of vio-lence can provide a source for modeling behavior. Certainly, concern over the negative impact of violent entertainment extends back generations. Yet, the realism offered by today’s entertainment options has intensified the debate.
Much was written in the popular press about the fact that Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza spent long hours alone in the basement of his Newtown home playing violent video games (see, for example, Edelman, 2013).
However, his gaming may be more a symptom of his personality and temperament than the cause.
As a socially awkward youngster, reportedly with Asperger’s syndrome, his social isolation may be the key to his preoccupation with gaming as well as his rampage against an unwelcom-ing society.
The entertainment industry has, at times, been used as a convenient scapegoat, and censorship as an easy solution.
To the extent that youngsters spend endless hours being entertained by violence says more about the lack of parental supervision and control.
Myth: Greater Attention and Response to the Telltale Warning Signs Will Allow Us to Identify Would-Be Mass Killers Before They Act
In the aftermath of an extremely violent episode, survivors typically question why certain warning signs were ignored. The warning sign can even come in the form of overt or veiled threats articulated by the soon-to-become mass murderer—a process that has been termed “leakage” (O’Toole, 2008).
If anything, these indicators are yel-low flags that only turn red once the blood has spilled and are identified in the after-math of tragedy with crystal-clear hindsight.
There certainly exist a number of common features in the profile of a mass shooter.
As shown in Table 1, they are overwhelmingly male (more than 95% are male), more often Caucasian (nearly two thirds are White), and older than murderers in general (half are more than 30 years of age).
Beyond just these demographics, mass killers tend to share a number of psychological and behavioral characteristics, including depression, resentment, social isolation, the tendency to externalize blame, fascination with graphically violent entertainment, and a keen interest in weaponry (see Fox & Levin, 2003).
However, these characteristics, even in combination, are fairly prevalent in the general population.
Profiles and checklists designed to predict rare events—such as mass shootings—tend to overpredict, producing a large number of “false positives” (see Chaiken et al., 1994; Norko & Baranoski, 2008).
Many people may closely match the profile—angry, frustrated folks who are reclusive, quick to blame others for their shortcomings and make threatening remarks—but very few will in fact commit murder, much less mass murder (see Bjelopera, Bagalman, Caldwell, Finklea, & McCallion, 2013; Ferguson, Coulson, & Barnett, 2011; Mulvey & Cauffman, 2001)
In addition, aggressive attempts to single out potential troublemakers before they make trouble can potentially do more harm than good by stigmatizing, marginalizing, and traumatizing already troubled individuals.
If they already feel mistreated, then focused interventions, even if benevolent, can easily be misinterpreted as further evidence of persecution, thereby encouraging a violent outburst rather than discouraging it.
Myth: Widening the Availability of Mental Health Services Will Allow Unstable Individuals to Get the Treatment They Need and Avert Mass Murders
Recent mass shootings at the hands of seemingly disturbed individuals have prompted mental health advocates to push for increased access to treatment.
With their tendency to externalize blame and consider themselves as victims of mistreatment, mass murderers see the problem to reside in others, not themselves (Knoll, 2012).
If urged or even coerced to seek counseling, the would-be mass murderer would likely resist angrily to the suggestion that something is wrong with him or her. He or she desires fair treatment, not psychological treatment (see, for example, Fox & Levin, 1994).
Myth: Enhanced Background Checks Will Keep Dangerous Weapons Out of the Hands of These Madmen
If one thing is predictable about mass shootings, it is that they will spark heated debate over gun control. Many public officials and private citizens alike insist that we must find a way to keep guns away from our most dangerous element.
However, they are often blinded by passion and anger from confronting the practical limitations to achieving that desirable objective.
Most mass murderers do not have criminal records or a history of psychiatric hospitalization (Dietz, 1986). They would not be disqualified from purchasing their weapons legally.
A recent examination of 93 mass shootings from January 2009 through September 2013, conducted by Mayors Against Illegal Guns (2013), found no indication that any of the assailants were prohibited by federal law from possessing firearms because they had been adjudicated mentally ill or had been involuntarily committed for treatment.
And in just 10 of the 93 cases, there was evidence that concerns about the mental health of the shooter had been brought to the attention of a medical practitioner or legal authority prior to the shooting spree.
People cannot be denied their Second Amendment rights just because they look strange or act in an odd manner.
Moreover, would-be mass killers can usually find an alternative way of securing the needed weaponry. Several mass shooters have used firearms purchased, borrowed, or stolen from a family member or friend (see Follman et al., 2013).
Myth: Restoring the Federal Ban on Assault Weapons Will Prevent These Horrible Crimes
In the aftermath of the Newtown shooting, many media pundits and political leaders alike decried the expiration of the 1994 federal ban on certain military-style assault weapons.
However, a comparison of the incidence of mass shootings during the 10-year window when the assault weapon ban was in force against the time periods before implementation and after expiration shows that the legislation had virtually no effect, at least in terms of murder in an extreme form.
As shown in Table 2, based on SHR data from 1976 to 2011, the average incidence and victimization level during the federal prohibi
tion was not especially different than in the years before or after the law was operative. The overwhelming majority of mass murderers use firearms that would not be restricted by an assault weapons ban (see Duwe, 2007).
As shown in Table 3, semiautomatic handguns are far more prevalent in random massacres than firearms that would typically be classified as assault weapons (Follman et al., 2013).
In fact, only one quarter of these mass murderers killed with an assault weapon; they easily could have identified an alternate means of mass casualty if that were necessary.
In an analysis of mass shootings from January 2009 through September 2013, Mayors Against Illegal Guns (2013) confirmed the limited role of military-style assault weapons.
Only 14 of the 93 incidents examined by this gun-control group involved assault weapons or high-capacity magazines.
Myth: Expanding “Right to Carry” Provisions Will Deter Mass Killers or at Least Stop Them in Their Tracks and Reduce the Body Counts
Using a Poisson regression approach, Lott and Landes (2000) analyzed the effect of right-to-carry laws in 23 states on the incidence and magnitude of multiple-victim homicide over the time frame of 1977-1995, concluding that such legislation works to suppress the risk and extent of mass violence.
However, Duwe, Kovandzic, and Moody (2002), applying the more flexible and appropriate negative binomial model to a time frame expanded through 1999, concluded that the effect of right-to-carry laws was negligible, neither encouraging nor discouraging mass shootings.
Myth: Increasing Physical Security in Schools and Other Places Will Prevent Mass Murder
In the short term, access control and close surveillance may calm the fears of an anxious public.
In the long run, it is equally important to avoid transforming our public spaces into fortresses.
If armed guards and armed teachers are indeed worthy strategies for protecting children, then what should schools do to protect the students before and after school?
Conclusion
The fact that gun control, expanded psychiatric services, and increased security measures are limited in their ability to prevent dreadful mass shootings doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try.
In the immediate aftermath of the Newtown shooting, there was momentum in Washington, D.C., and in various state legislatures to establish policies and procedures designed to make us all safer.
Gun restrictions and other initiatives may not stop the next mass murderer, wherever he or she may strike, but we can enhance the well-being of millions of Americans in the process. Besides, doing something is better than doing nothing. At least, it will reduce the debilitating feeling of helplessness.
Many of the well-intentioned proposals coming in response to the recent spike in mass shootings may do much to affect the level of violent crime that plagues our nation daily.
We shouldn’t, however, expect such efforts to take a big bite out of crime in its most extreme form.
Of course, taking a nibble out of the risk of mass murder, however small, would still be a worthy goal for the nation.
However, those who have suggested that their plan for change will ensure that a crime such as the Sandy Hook massacre will never reoccur will be bitterly disappointed.
Eliminating the risk of mass murder would involve extreme steps that we are unable or unwilling to take—abolishing the Second Amendment, achieving full employment, restoring our sense of community, and rounding up anyone who looks or acts at all suspicious.
Mass murder just may be a price we must pay for living in a society where personal freedom is so highly valued.
James Alan Fox and Monica J. DeLateur
Mass shootings at a Connecticut elementary school, a Colorado movie theater, and other venues have prompted a fair number of proposals for change. Advocates for tighter gun restrictions, for expanding mental health services, for upgrading security in public places, and, even, for controlling violent entertainment have made certain assumptions about the nature of mass murder that are not necessarily valid.
This article examines a variety of myths and misconceptions about multiple homicide and mass shooters, pointing out some of the difficult realities in trying to avert these murderous rampages.
prospects for reducing the risk of mass murder are limited
Myth: Mass Murderers Snap and Kill Indiscriminately
One of the earliest systematic examinations of mass murder incidents challenged the widespread view in the popular press and professional literature that mass murderers are crazed lunatics who suddenly snap, go berserk, and kill indiscriminately (Levin & Fox, 1985). Over the past few decades, moreover, this notion has persisted, at least in the public’s mind, in large part because of the selective attention to the most extreme and unusual cases.
However, mass murder rarely involves a sudden explosion of rage. To the contrary, mass killers typically plan their assaults for days, weeks, or months (see, for example, Fox & Levin, 2012; Walkup & Rubin, 2013). These preparations include where, when, and who to kill, as well as with what weapons they will strike. These assailants are deliberate, determined to kill, with little regard for what obstacles are placed in their path.
Whatever the style of killing, the motives for mass murder are organized around five primary themes that can occur singly or in combination (Fox & Levin, 1998).
Specifically,
1 Revenge (e.g., a deeply disgruntled individual seeks payback for a host of fail-ures in career, school, or personal life)
2 Power (e.g., a “pseudo-commando” style massacre perpetrated by some mar-ginalized individual attempting to wage a personal war against society)
3 Loyalty (e.g., a devoted husband/father kills his entire family and then himself to spare them all from a miserable existence on earth and to reunite them in the hereafter)
4 Terror (e.g., a political dissident destroys government property, with several victims killed as “collateral damage,” to send a strong message to those in power)
5 Profit (e.g., a gunman executes the customers and employees at a retail store to eliminate all witnesses to a robbery).
Among these types, revenge motivation is, by far, the most commonplace (see Knoll, 2010; Leyton, 1986).
Mass murderers often see themselves as victims—victims of injustice (Bowers et al., 2010; Palermo, 1997).
They seek payback for what they perceive to be unfair treatment by targeting those they hold responsible for their mis-fortunes.
Most often, the ones to be punished are family members (an unfaithful wife and all her children) or coworkers (an overbearing boss and all his employees). In such cases, there may be a primary target (which itself can be a place, such as a company, a school, or an agency) while others are killed as surrogates, in what has been termed “murder by proxy”.
Sometimes, mass murderers target an entire category of people (e.g., women, Jews, immigrants, Whites, Blacks, etc.)
The victims may be chosen randomly, but the type of victim or the place to find them may not be. In such cases, strangers are punished just because of their class membership or group association.
The rarest form of mass murder is the completely random attack (often in a public place) committed by someone who in his or her paranoid thinking suspects that the whole world is corrupt and unfair (Petee, Padgett, & York, 1997).
The level of paranoia may be truly psychotic (e.g., God, the President, or some other powerful entity is behind a wide-ranging conspiracy) or involve a lesser form of paranoid personality disorder in which the perpetrator consistently misconstrues innocent acts or gestures by others as purposely malicious.
Even though most mass murderers deliberately target specific people or places, it is, of course, the seemingly senseless random massacres that are the most frightening to people.
After all, they can happen at any place, at any time, and to anyone—usually without warning—and, for this reason, random acts of mass murder, although the least frequent form, receive the most attention by the mass media and the public alike.
Myth: Mass Shootings Are on the Rise
The recent carnages in Newtown, Connecticut; Aurora, Colorado; and elsewhere have compelled many observers to examine the possible reasons behind the rise in mass murder. The New York Times columnist David Brooks noted the number of schizophrenics going untreated (Brooks, 2012).
Former President Bill Clinton and other gun-control advocates have pointed to the expiration of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban as the culprit, while gun-rights proponents have argued that the body counts would be lower were more Americans armed and ready to overtake an active shooter.
There is, however, one not-so-tiny flaw in all the various theories and speculations for the presumed increase in mass shootings: Mass shootings have not increased in number or in overall death toll, at least not over the past several decades.
For example, the Mother Jones news organization, having assembled a database of public mass shootings from 1982 through 2012, has reported a recent surge in incidents and fatalities, including a spike and record number of casualties in the year 2012.
It is critical to note that Mother Jones did not include all mass shootings in their analysis but instead attempted to delineate those that were senseless, random, or at least public in nature.
Mother Jones settled on several criteria for inclusion in its mass shootings database, specifically the following:
- The shooter took the lives of at least four people
- The killings were carried out by a lone shooter
- The shootings happened during a single incident and in a public place; and
- The murders were not related to armed robbery or gang activity.
By virtue of these selection rules, mass shootings involving family members were excluded, even though they too can involve large body counts.
Other massive shootings were ignored because of their relation to gang activity or some criminal enterprise.
Not only is Mother Jones’s decision to disqualify cases based on certain criteria that are hard to defend but also the criteria themselves were not necessarily applied consistently (see Fox, 2013).
According to these expanded data, over the past few decades, there have been, on average, nearly 20 mass shootings a year in the United States.
Without minimizing the pain and suffering of the hundreds of those who have been victimized in recent attacks, the facts clearly say that there has been no increase in mass shootings and certainly no epidemic.
What is abundantly clear from the full array of mass shootings is the largely random variability in the annual counts.
There have been several points in time when journalists and others have speculated about a possible epidemic in response to a flurry of high-profile shootings.
Yet, these speculations have always proven to be incorrect when subsequent years reveal more moderate levels.
Myth: Recent Mass Murders Involve Record-Setting Body Counts
If anything has increased with regard to mass murder, it is the public’s fear, anxiety, and widely held belief that the problem is getting worse (see Baldassare, Bonner, Petek, & Shrestha, 2013).
Unquestionably, this perception is linked to the style and pervasiveness of news-media coverage, owing in large part to advances in technology (Heath & Gilbert, 1996).
In 1966, when Charles Whitman opened fire from atop the 307-foot tower at the University of Texas in Austin, there were no 24-hr news stations or fleets of satellite trucks to relay images of tragedy as they unfolded. CNN wasn’t born until the 1980s, and the other major cable news outlets not until much later.
The extensive news focus on school shootings certainly had an impact on perception and fear. The same USA Today/Gallup poll found that nearly one quarter of those surveyed believed that a shooting spree such as Sandy Hook was “very likely” to occur in their own community and more than half thought that it was at least “somewhat likely”.
Myth: Violent Entertainment, Especially Video Games, Are Causally Linked to Mass Murder
Besides the imitation of notorious crimes and criminals, fictional portrayals of vio-lence can provide a source for modeling behavior. Certainly, concern over the negative impact of violent entertainment extends back generations. Yet, the realism offered by today’s entertainment options has intensified the debate.
Much was written in the popular press about the fact that Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza spent long hours alone in the basement of his Newtown home playing violent video games (see, for example, Edelman, 2013).
However, his gaming may be more a symptom of his personality and temperament than the cause.
As a socially awkward youngster, reportedly with Asperger’s syndrome, his social isolation may be the key to his preoccupation with gaming as well as his rampage against an unwelcom-ing society.
The entertainment industry has, at times, been used as a convenient scapegoat, and censorship as an easy solution.
To the extent that youngsters spend endless hours being entertained by violence says more about the lack of parental supervision and control.
Myth: Greater Attention and Response to the Telltale Warning Signs Will Allow Us to Identify Would-Be Mass Killers Before They Act
In the aftermath of an extremely violent episode, survivors typically question why certain warning signs were ignored. The warning sign can even come in the form of overt or veiled threats articulated by the soon-to-become mass murderer—a process that has been termed “leakage” (O’Toole, 2008).
If anything, these indicators are yel-low flags that only turn red once the blood has spilled and are identified in the after-math of tragedy with crystal-clear hindsight.
There certainly exist a number of common features in the profile of a mass shooter.
As shown in Table 1, they are overwhelmingly male (more than 95% are male), more often Caucasian (nearly two thirds are White), and older than murderers in general (half are more than 30 years of age).
Beyond just these demographics, mass killers tend to share a number of psychological and behavioral characteristics, including depression, resentment, social isolation, the tendency to externalize blame, fascination with graphically violent entertainment, and a keen interest in weaponry (see Fox & Levin, 2003).
However, these characteristics, even in combination, are fairly prevalent in the general population.
Profiles and checklists designed to predict rare events—such as mass shootings—tend to overpredict, producing a large number of “false positives” (see Chaiken et al., 1994; Norko & Baranoski, 2008).
Many people may closely match the profile—angry, frustrated folks who are reclusive, quick to blame others for their shortcomings and make threatening remarks—but very few will in fact commit murder, much less mass murder (see Bjelopera, Bagalman, Caldwell, Finklea, & McCallion, 2013; Ferguson, Coulson, & Barnett, 2011; Mulvey & Cauffman, 2001)
In addition, aggressive attempts to single out potential troublemakers before they make trouble can potentially do more harm than good by stigmatizing, marginalizing, and traumatizing already troubled individuals.
If they already feel mistreated, then focused interventions, even if benevolent, can easily be misinterpreted as further evidence of persecution, thereby encouraging a violent outburst rather than discouraging it.
Myth: Widening the Availability of Mental Health Services Will Allow Unstable Individuals to Get the Treatment They Need and Avert Mass Murders
Recent mass shootings at the hands of seemingly disturbed individuals have prompted mental health advocates to push for increased access to treatment.
With their tendency to externalize blame and consider themselves as victims of mistreatment, mass murderers see the problem to reside in others, not themselves (Knoll, 2012).
If urged or even coerced to seek counseling, the would-be mass murderer would likely resist angrily to the suggestion that something is wrong with him or her. He or she desires fair treatment, not psychological treatment (see, for example, Fox & Levin, 1994).
Myth: Enhanced Background Checks Will Keep Dangerous Weapons Out of the Hands of These Madmen
If one thing is predictable about mass shootings, it is that they will spark heated debate over gun control. Many public officials and private citizens alike insist that we must find a way to keep guns away from our most dangerous element.
However, they are often blinded by passion and anger from confronting the practical limitations to achieving that desirable objective.
Most mass murderers do not have criminal records or a history of psychiatric hospitalization (Dietz, 1986). They would not be disqualified from purchasing their weapons legally.
A recent examination of 93 mass shootings from January 2009 through September 2013, conducted by Mayors Against Illegal Guns (2013), found no indication that any of the assailants were prohibited by federal law from possessing firearms because they had been adjudicated mentally ill or had been involuntarily committed for treatment.
And in just 10 of the 93 cases, there was evidence that concerns about the mental health of the shooter had been brought to the attention of a medical practitioner or legal authority prior to the shooting spree.
People cannot be denied their Second Amendment rights just because they look strange or act in an odd manner.
Moreover, would-be mass killers can usually find an alternative way of securing the needed weaponry. Several mass shooters have used firearms purchased, borrowed, or stolen from a family member or friend (see Follman et al., 2013).
Myth: Restoring the Federal Ban on Assault Weapons Will Prevent These Horrible Crimes
In the aftermath of the Newtown shooting, many media pundits and political leaders alike decried the expiration of the 1994 federal ban on certain military-style assault weapons.
However, a comparison of the incidence of mass shootings during the 10-year window when the assault weapon ban was in force against the time periods before implementation and after expiration shows that the legislation had virtually no effect, at least in terms of murder in an extreme form.
As shown in Table 2, based on SHR data from 1976 to 2011, the average incidence and victimization level during the federal prohibi
tion was not especially different than in the years before or after the law was operative. The overwhelming majority of mass murderers use firearms that would not be restricted by an assault weapons ban (see Duwe, 2007).
As shown in Table 3, semiautomatic handguns are far more prevalent in random massacres than firearms that would typically be classified as assault weapons (Follman et al., 2013).
In fact, only one quarter of these mass murderers killed with an assault weapon; they easily could have identified an alternate means of mass casualty if that were necessary.
In an analysis of mass shootings from January 2009 through September 2013, Mayors Against Illegal Guns (2013) confirmed the limited role of military-style assault weapons.
Only 14 of the 93 incidents examined by this gun-control group involved assault weapons or high-capacity magazines.
Myth: Expanding “Right to Carry” Provisions Will Deter Mass Killers or at Least Stop Them in Their Tracks and Reduce the Body Counts
Using a Poisson regression approach, Lott and Landes (2000) analyzed the effect of right-to-carry laws in 23 states on the incidence and magnitude of multiple-victim homicide over the time frame of 1977-1995, concluding that such legislation works to suppress the risk and extent of mass violence.
However, Duwe, Kovandzic, and Moody (2002), applying the more flexible and appropriate negative binomial model to a time frame expanded through 1999, concluded that the effect of right-to-carry laws was negligible, neither encouraging nor discouraging mass shootings.
Myth: Increasing Physical Security in Schools and Other Places Will Prevent Mass Murder
In the short term, access control and close surveillance may calm the fears of an anxious public.
In the long run, it is equally important to avoid transforming our public spaces into fortresses.
If armed guards and armed teachers are indeed worthy strategies for protecting children, then what should schools do to protect the students before and after school?
Conclusion
The fact that gun control, expanded psychiatric services, and increased security measures are limited in their ability to prevent dreadful mass shootings doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try.
In the immediate aftermath of the Newtown shooting, there was momentum in Washington, D.C., and in various state legislatures to establish policies and procedures designed to make us all safer.
Gun restrictions and other initiatives may not stop the next mass murderer, wherever he or she may strike, but we can enhance the well-being of millions of Americans in the process. Besides, doing something is better than doing nothing. At least, it will reduce the debilitating feeling of helplessness.
Many of the well-intentioned proposals coming in response to the recent spike in mass shootings may do much to affect the level of violent crime that plagues our nation daily.
We shouldn’t, however, expect such efforts to take a big bite out of crime in its most extreme form.
Of course, taking a nibble out of the risk of mass murder, however small, would still be a worthy goal for the nation.
However, those who have suggested that their plan for change will ensure that a crime such as the Sandy Hook massacre will never reoccur will be bitterly disappointed.
Eliminating the risk of mass murder would involve extreme steps that we are unable or unwilling to take—abolishing the Second Amendment, achieving full employment, restoring our sense of community, and rounding up anyone who looks or acts at all suspicious.
Mass murder just may be a price we must pay for living in a society where personal freedom is so highly valued.
August 15, 2013
This book is not what i expected. It is more fact oriented, like a textbook, than a novel; which made for an intensely boring and slow read. On that note, the book is however an unbiased explanation of the events that occurred. At times the explanations get so in depth that they feel almost off topic. There was a lot of mention of people and events that really had nothing to do with the events that took place in Gainesville (chapters upon chapters of "useless" information), the comparisons of other serial killers was a neat addition, but also very distracting. It felt as if the author was "padding" the book, to make it longer. The book included a few pictures: the murder, his victims, one of the apartment complexes, the memorial site, and the police officer Lee Strope. It would have been nice to also have a picture of the suspect that was the focus of so many chapters.
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