What causes people to kill?

Great Debates
21

I grew up in that town, and in fact, my dad and mother-in-law still live just a few blocks from her. There is nothing you can do to get yourself to understand the place this woman’s head was in when she did this. She’s nuts and apparently has been for some time. It’s a horrible tragedy. I feel sorry for all of them. (the local paper said she stabbed each kid 200 times). I can’t begin to wrap my head around it. It’s a level of insanity we can only hope we never reach.

22

But consider how many murders he did commit, and consider how closely he came to getting away with the one that did him in. He was smarter than most people, and smart enough to cover his tracks. Moreover, he rarely had to. Serial Killers strike very nearly at random, at least from everyone else’s point of view (they have very specific targets and haunts). We didn’t even know they existed until this century!

When it comes down to it, pretty much everybody can kill if the stakes are high enough. Some peope will die rather than kill, because they choose to be extremely good. But such people are quite rare. I’m also willing to bet that they’re willing to kill if you put them in right situation. My own Pope John Paul II was a very nice man, but I wouldn’t want to be Hitler or Stalin in a room with him.

People will kill for one of the following reasons:

  1. Self Defense. Fact is, people don’t want to die, and nearly everyone will kill to avoid it if they can. And most people will kill to protect those they love, and often to protect those they don’t, if they feel it’s the right thing to do.

  2. Extreme Narcissism. Some people love themselves so much that they stop caring about anyone else.

  3. Extreme Nihilism. Much like the above, but more disgusting. Some people are just so hateful they’ll kill just because, with no real reason at all.

  4. Insanity. There are people who are just out of their gourd. Moreover, it’s entirely possible for good people to commit stunningly awful crimes. While cop dramas, well, dramatize it, there are some killers who aren’t bad people. (A lot of them are pretty dumb, but even they are mean. The smart mean people choose less violent crimes.)