In his op-ed at the Washington Post Alex Yablon reflects on the factors that unite mass murders with little else in common:
The Trace launched just 48 hours after the 2015 Charleston church massacre. Since then, my colleagues and I have covered similar shootings perpetrated by failed business owners, wayward veterans, troubled teenagers, jihadist dabblers, disgruntled employees, antiabortionists, estranged spouses, Black Lives Matter supporters, sovereign citizens and many others. It’s usually difficult to decide just which label best describes the perpetrator: Often, several seem to apply, or none at all. The difficulty of interpreting motivations is compounded by the fact that at the end of these rampages, the shooter is typically among the dead.
What is clear, however, is that regardless of ideological motivation, or even in the complete absence of any such drive, these kinds of attacks are usually presaged by some clear warning signs.
As Duke University psychiatrist Dr. Jeffrey Swanson told me in the wake of the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, “Most people who commit serious crimes, that’s not where they began. They didn’t just start committing gun homicides.â€
Is it possible that plea deals and general failure to enforce the law contribute to an escalating pattern that may lead with mass murder? That the broken window strategy of law enforcement is actually correct and undermined by prosecutors more interested in clearing their dockets than enforcing the law?
Maybe a few might be influenced by leniency, but I think most perpetrators are acting on purely desctructive impulses fueled by lifetimes of grievance, and don’t give a rip about other people or themselves in the commission of the act.
Suicide by cop is another manifestation of the same impulses.
Felony convictions tend to reduce one’s ability to purchase firearms. Misdemeanors or a completely clean record (because not recorded) do not.
I’m convinces that the man or woman who shoots to kill has a grievance or plural. Even armed robbers (which crime carries a mandatory penalty of five years) don’t usually mean to pull the trigger. They just want the victim to hand over what they want.