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April 19, 2007
Common Denominators Suggest Ideas about Prevention
The Star Trib this morning published an op-ed piece by James Alan Fox, a professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University, who wrote it for the L.A. Times. It starts off: "Mass murder certainly wasn't invented with the 1966 Texas Tower shootings." Well, that hit a nerve. The Whitman shootings occurred one month before I began my freshman year at UT Austin. A friend of mine from high school was shot and her unborn baby was killed. So yes, it hit a nerve.
But what intrigued me about this article was that Fox looked at the factors common to recent mass murders. He noted that "seven of the eight largest mass shootings in modern U.S. history have occurred in the last 25 years." The common denominators he mentioned included the following:
1) The perpetrators have a long history of frustration, failure, and inability to cope.
2) They externalize blame, complaining that others haven't given them a chance.
3) They lack emotional support from friends and family.
4) They experience an event that precipitates the rampage - perhaps a major disappointment in work, school, or relationships; a racial slur; taunting.
5) They gain access to a weapon powerful enough to satisfy their need for revenge.
And a number of changes in our society provide tinder that allows the factors above to ignite.
a) Weapons are more potent than ever - we've moved from pistols to semi-automatics.
b) The U.S. is more competitive than ever, with little compassion for those who fail.
c) The decline of community (of many kinds) intensifies the isolation of potential mass murderers.
I would add the following:
d) Society is increasingly polarized along lines of race, class, ethnicity, political persuasion, sexual orientation, religion, and other categories.
e) Our understanding of mental illness remains poor; mental health services are inadequate; those seeking mental health services are stigmatized; privacy laws intended to protect people's rights infringe on the rights of others.
A close examination of these points suggests many ideas about prevention of future tragedies. Of course, we can't prevent them all. But for every person who actualizes the killing, there are likely others on the verge, suffering. We as individuals and communities can do things that might actually help. If we each looked at the items above and picked one to work on, just imagine how powerful that could be.
Posted by hgroteva at April 19, 2007 09:43 PM | Society