1 June 2022 — 0928 mdt
An inartful Tweet, a rally for better firearms policy
By James Conner
What motivates school shooters
Our research and dozens of interviews with incarcerated perpetrators of mass shootings suggests that for most perpetrators, the mass shooting event is intended to be a final act. The majority of school mass shooters die in the attack. Of the 15 mass school shooters in our database, just seven were apprehended. The rest died on the scene, nearly all by suicide – the lone exception being the Robb Elementary shooter, who was shot dead by police.
And school shooters tend to preempt their attacks by leaving posts, messages or videos warning of their intent.
Inspired by past school shooters, some perpetrators are seeking fame and notoriety. However, most school shooters are motivated by a generalized anger. Their path to violence involves self-hate and despair turned outward at the world, and our research finds they often communicate their intent to do harm in advance as a final, desperate cry for help. The key to stopping these tragedies is for society to be alert to these warning signs and act on them immediately. Source.
Much to my everlasting dismay, I’m not immune to phrasing a thought inartfully. Yesterday, attempting to say that calls for more restrictions on firearms are not being heeded, I Tweeted:
The Uvalde massacre is no longer above the fold on the Washington Post’s home page. The dead are being buried, their survivors are mourning, and the calls for firearms reform are fading. This is the American way. When will we ever make America better?
I should have Tweeted “not being heeded” instead of “fading.”Dozens of followers and strangers rightly took exception, noting that rallies for better firearms policy are scheduled across America in the next week.
Kalispell’s rally, sponsored by Moms Demand Action, starts tomorrow at 1900 MDT at the Lagoon Pavilion in Woodland Park. As yet, I have no contact information for the organizers.
These rallies may indirectly infuse additional energy and resources into campaigns for progressive candidates, but they will not produce cries for sensible firearms policy that cannot be ignored. The problem is not that politicians are not listening to firearms reformers. It’s that they also are listening to tens of millions of Americans who are convinced that stricter controls on firearms will curtain their ability to keep their families safe and their country free. Until those people change their minds, and, as Ron Brownstein, writing in The Atlantic, observes, the structure of American government is changed to eliminate minority rule, nothing will change.