I will start by saying that I am not looking for a debate on gun control. Timothy Mcveigh and Osama Bin Laden both proved that mass murder can happen without guns. What I am asking is, what brings people to commit these atrocities? I have often heard mental health, religion, and desire for fame as potential reasons. Are these the answer?
WAG: Anger. Wrath. Built-up rage.
Though, even if that’s the answer, it doesn’t really explain anything.
A sense of helplessness is sometimes involved. They can’t figure any other way to change the world, so they attack it.
Also suicide in a blaze of glory, wanting to make the news headlines.
Reaction to redundancies. 
A belief that individual lives have no worth, but are, collectively, a means to an end the murderer has chosen.
They want the world to acknowledge their existence, even if it’s negatively (and posthumously as is often the case).
The Puppet: So tell me, please, why have I done [these terrible things]?
Clyde Bruckman: Don’t you understand yet, son? Don’t you get it?
The Puppet: [shakes his head and shrugs helplessly]
Clyde Bruckman: You do the things you do because you’re a homicidal maniac.
[silence]
The Puppet: [smiles slowly] That… that does explain a lot, doesn’t it? It’s all starting to make sense now.
An imam who recently spoke in Orlando apparently said that death was the appropriate sentence for gays, and that doing so was “compassionate.” Not saying that that’s a common or a representative point of view, but it’s presumably one way to convince oneself to start killing.
Not necessarily. Lots of people in the US think that death is the appropriate sentence for murder, or certain murders, or perhaps other crimes. But they don’t take it on themselves to start killing.
I don’t think many people start by feeling that some acts deserve a death sentence, and then reason themselves into a position where they feel morally justified, or even morally compelled, to kill those who engage in such an act. Rather, I think it’s more common that people who are consumed by rage and hatred and feel compelled to act it out seize on an ideological justification as a way to rationalise their violence.
Possibly this Imam was saying the kind of thing that Mateen liked to hear (though I don’t know whether we have any idea if Mateen ever heard him?). But as the reason why Mateen did what he did? I’m not really seeing that.
It’s not that he liked to hear it. But if he had immersed himself in that ideology from an early age, combined with his own conflicting sexuality, plus his increasing politicization . . . that proved to be a deadly mix. But without that poisonous ideology it probably wouldn’t have happened.
Fear…
I don’t think we can say that, since this attack slots into a depressingly familiar pattern of “going postal” in the US, in most of which the perpetrators are not Muslims, or inspired by Islam. So people filled with rage and fear can and do mount such attacks; on what basis can we say that Mateen “probably” would not have killed without this particular ideology, when so many others have?
Mass killers of this type often claim an ideological inspiration, and it will be an extremist version of some ideology which is held peaceably by others. In this case, and in others that we can easily think of, it’s Islam. Timothy McVeigh’s claimed motivation was a distorted version of characteristically American political principles of personal liberty. Abortion clinic bombers, depending on your point of view, are actuated either by an extremist version of religious belief, or an extremist version of a basically enlightenment ideology which places human rights at the centre of moral actions. In so far as the Columbine school shooters had an ideological motivation, it seems to have been some combination of nihilism and naziism. Still others - Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook - don’t appear to have any even semi-coherent ideological motive.
In other words, I don’t think what mass shooters/bombers have in common is any specific ideology, or even ideology in general. What they have in common is not ideology, but psychology. Given that, I’m sceptical that we can say of any mass shooter/bomber who professes a particular ideology that, but for that ideology, he wouldn’t have become a mass shooter or bomber.
Some of 'em just don’t like Mondays.
Here’s the part that I don’t get… In every single case of a mass shooting, we come to find out that these people had very deliberately been feeding their evil dog. (As the old saying goes…) Why?
This is the part that I just can’t figure out. I can’t comprehend why someone would look at all the violence in the middle east, with the brutality, and the beheadings, and the slavery, and think to themselves, “Hmmm… Maybe these people have a good point. I’d think I’d like to hear more about their ideas and their reasons.” It just baffles me.
Even the folks who didn’t appear to commit violence in service of any particular ideology seemed enamored of the idea of violence in general. I’m not familiar with even a single case of a mass shooting in which the person legitimately just snapped one day. In every case I’ve ever heard of, the person spent weeks, months, or years building up to it. When we investigate their backgrounds we find that they all had long-term fascination with and fetishization of violence, and many of the killers did express their admiration of other mass killers and their intent to do the same.
Timothy McVeigh used to stand on the street corner handing out violent anti-government propaganda. Nidal Hassan stood up in front of his West Point class and told everyone about the virtues of jihadist Islam. James Holmes did everything short of actually stand on the rooftop with a loudspeaker. When they finally do lapse into violence, the only real surprise is that anyone is actually surprised.
I’m sorry if my point here is confused, because I barely understand it myself. But my take is that these people choose to seek out violent ideologies or violent role models. It is a choice that they make, and they are 100% rationally aware of the path they are on. This doesn’t actually answer the question, because, again… Why? Why does a person *choose *to do this?
As Homer Simpson put it: He did it because he’s stupid. That’s the only reason anybody does anything.
On a more somber note, they get the feeling that their victims deserve to die. “Well, if they hadn’t been in a government building/abortion clinic/financial capital building/gay night club, they wouldn’t have died. It’s their fault.”
^^ This
I would posit that all anger, rage, etc. is rooted in fear.
- fear of self revelation
- fear of losing control
- fear of having one’s ethics compromised
- fear of…
There’s a vast difference between “appropriate” and “compassionate.” He’s describing the murder of gay people as mercy killing. That’s the different mind-set I’m citing, the idea that someone would literally be doing them a favor.
I don’t know if this specific aspect is all that different to how most people’s opinions shape their lives. Most people don’t go out killing, of course, but it seems like a lot of the time people generally surround themselves with media or people who support the viewpoints they already have. Putting yourself into an echo chamber seems like a common human activity.
I think people with pre-existing violent tendencies seek out causes that practice violence that they can join and that will justify their urges. They’re looking for an environment where their urges will be condoned and ennobled.
Except the little kids at Sandy Hook Elementary