Article on school shootings and motives

[Hellcats]

How School Shootings Spread | The New Yorker

 

The gun control argument ate the thread on the Florida tragedy. After I was running through that thread this afternoon, I was reminded of the article above written by Malcolm Gladwell way back in 2015.

 

In the article, he describes this phenomena of school shootings as a slow moving riot. Each offender is acting with his own reasons and motives. I’m not going to try to summarize the article; I’m certain I would butcher it.

 

Just wanted to share.

[Jumper_Dad]

Great article. It addresses the WHY these things happen, without getting hung up on the HOW.

[Randy Parker]

How School Shootings Spread | The New Yorker

 

The gun control argument ate the thread on the Florida tragedy. After I was running through that thread this afternoon, I was reminded of the article above written by Malcolm Gladwell way back in 2015.

 

In the article, he describes this phenomena of school shootings as a slow moving riot. Each offender is acting with his own reasons and motives. I’m not going to try to summarize the article; I’m certain I would butcher it.

 

Just wanted to share.

 

Interesting read. I just read something along the same lines, which also referenced Gladwell's writings.

 

To the bolded, I would add that there is almost always lengthy premeditation involved by those who perpetrate mass shootings.

[oldgrappler]

I read the article and I'm not sure what to make of the theory. The author seems to say that LaDue is unlike other school shooters who fit more of a stereotype one would expect... one boy came from a bad home and was sexually abused while in foster care, another was just plain psychotic, etc. LaDue on the other hand had a loving home, he liked his parents (though he planned to kill them because that was the pattern set by previous school shooters), he wasn't bullied, etc. The only thing that seemed to be amiss is that he had a form of Apsberger's, which the author seems to say contributed to his later actions.

 

The author seems to suggest that now that school shootings are common-place, especially since Columbine, there is a phenomena that he likens to people caught up in a riot. Now, people who wouldn't normally act in such violent ways are influenced by past shooters to do the same thing. Kind of like a person who wouldn't throw a rock and break a store window on their own, will work up the bravado necessary to do it when they see someone else do it.

 

The point of his story is to say we can't really predict a school shooter anymore because they won't fit the stereotype of a psychotic madman or someone so evil that there should be a trail of previous deviant behavior that should serve as a forewarning. Now that it's been done before, people who wouldn't normally act this way because they have some common decency, will be caught up in the momentum of it and find themselves doing something that not even they anticipated they would do.

 

I don't know... but that's my understanding of the article.

[Hellcats]

I read the article and I'm not sure what to make of the theory. The author seems to say that LaDue is unlike other school shooters who fit more of a stereotype one would expect... one boy came from a bad home and was sexually abused while in foster care, another was just plain psychotic, etc. LaDue on the other hand had a loving home, he liked his parents (though he planned to kill them because that was the pattern set by previous school shooters), he wasn't bullied, etc. The only thing that seemed to be amiss is that he had a form of Apsberger's, which the author seems to say contributed to his later actions.

 

The author seems to suggest that now that school shootings are common-place, especially since Columbine, there is a phenomena that he likens to people caught up in a riot. Now, people who wouldn't normally act in such violent ways are influenced by past shooters to do the same thing. Kind of like a person who wouldn't throw a rock and break a store window on their own, will work up the bravado necessary to do it when they see someone else do it.

 

The point of his story is to say we can't really predict a school shooter anymore because they won't fit the stereotype of a psychotic madman or someone so evil that there should be a trail of previous deviant behavior that should serve as a forewarning. Now that it's been done before, people who wouldn't normally act this way because they have some common decency, will be caught up in the momentum of it and find themselves doing something that not even they anticipated they would do.

 

I don't know... but that's my understanding of the article.

 

Today all we can do is try to protect our students whatever the cost until this wave of craziness is over.

[Randy Parker]

Don't know if this should go here, but:

 

John Podhoretz @jpodhoretz

The shooter story gets more tragic by the minute. According to a teacher in his middle school, he was actually transferred to a specific school for possibly violent kids. Which means there was intervention at a young age of the sort we're all talking about and it didn't work.

[Beechwoodfan]

Interesting article. Scarey, but interesting.

[Run To State]

A very good read. Sheds some light on things a bit. Thanks for sharing, Hellcats!