Yep. Somebody shooting at you might or might not make a “kill” shot. Maybe you just get shot in the jaw or the shoulder or the testicles and have to endure a lot of pain. Rather than face that, the cowardly little shits off themselves.
Any piece of metal moving at 900+ fps will do “a shocking amount of damage to a person,” as any E/R resident can attest. Let’s not perpetuate the notion here that some kinds of bullets will do extraordinarily and miraculous levels of damage, or that armor piercing, high explosive, cyanide-tipped “cop-killer” super bullets exists and are available for over-the-counter sale. Hollowpoint bullets are more effective in terms of their potential to immediately disable the intended target, but not hugely so; their primary virtue is that they’re more likely to stop inside the intended target and not penetrate through and pose risk to bystanders.
Insofar as we can make any sense out of why someone would do this, I think Phase42’s rationale makes most sense. Depression is largely about not having any control, even over your own emotions, and so striking out is a means of reasserting control, and killing yourself is sort of the ultimate act of self-assertion.
Stranger
From that link, pravnik, it sounds as if they hadn’t planned to kill themselves: they had planned to be shot.
And one too many guns.
Very likely; the day didn’t turn out anything like they planned. If the bombs had gone off like they’d hoped, almost six hundred people in the cafeteria and library could have been killed, not even counting those they were planning to shoot afterwards. Chilling stuff.
I’m thinking the whole event is a last desperate act and allowing someone else to finish it would take away control. I really think control plays a big role in this
Since we’ve learned he stopped to mail the video I would say he planned on taking revenge on the world.
Too bad you can’t get nut-jobs locked up any more. Didn’t hear the whole thing but one of the talking heads said that a formal complaint filed against him would have nixed a gun purchase. Of course, then he would have been flinging pipe bombs or exploding kittens into a crowd.
Uh… no. :rolleyes: Not wanting to live anymore is not at all the same thing as wanting everyone else to die.
Wanting to die is the same as wanting the universe to end – because when you die, the universe really will cease to exist, at least from your perspective (what you believe comes after this point is a whole 'nother discussion).
Once you know the universe is going to end, I’m guessing it’s easier to do something heinous like commit murder. And if you’re extremely pissed at the world, that mass murder you’ve been fantasizing about all these years is going to seem just a little bit easier.
Well, first, not everyone who wants to commit suicide does so for the same reasons. I can’t speak for all of them, obviously, but your generalization isn’t accurate either.
Err, it’s entirely possible to believe that ending one’s own life will not cause the rest of the universe to end. I think it’s rather rare for somebody, suicidal or not, to believe that they alone make up the whole of the universe…
And sure, if the would-be suicide were pissed at the world and believed that none of it mattered anyway, they might be able to rationalize that other people’s lives are worthless and expendable, etc., but not every would-be suicide thinks that way.
This is such a strange line of thought… it’s almost though you’re saying “That guy doesn’t want to live. The only possible explanation for this is that he’s crazy and angry at the world – which exists entirely within his head – so he’s going to drop all consideration of morality and then act out a long-hidden fantasy to destroy random members of this imaginary universe and then end his own life and thereby end the universe.”
