Preface & disclaimer from the author: I couldn’t help but weigh in on this issue, maybe as much to organize my thinking as anything. However, if you are expecting any brilliant explanations out of this piece, I suggest you save your time and read the sports pages. No body really knows why some people drop off the deep end and suddenly start killing indiscriminately. When it’s little kids, we have even less chance of understanding. After the grieving we need to have a rational discussion about it. Perhaps this is a place to start. Send me your comments.
Adam Lanza’s decision to devote last Friday to slaughtering 27 people including 20 school children aged 6 and 7 and then killing himself has set off a media frenzy and collective grieving unlike anything we have ever experienced. I guess it is the horror of imagining anyone so callused and cold being able to look innocent and helpless children in the face and then shoot them. Trained and hardened combat veterans cannot do that to a wounded or unarmed enemy.
For pure body count Anders Breivik of Norway wins the prize. He killed 69 and injured 170 in his bombing and then shooting attack at a summer camp on an island off the coast of Norway. And, Seung Hui Cho killed 32 and injured 17 in the Virginia Tech massacre. But for pure horror, Sandy Hook beats all.
Most recently James Eagen Holmes killed 12 in his theater attack in Aurora, CO but perhaps the most infamous incident prior to Sandy Hook was the 1999 Columbine High School shooting carried out by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold where 12 students and one teacher were killed.
Robert Leider, a U. of PA School of Law fellow had a thoughtful article in Monday’s WSJ (“Breaking the Gun Control Stalemate”). Inevitably, when one of these tragedies occur, the left cries out for more gun control laws and the gun rights people argue that if someone at the school had had a gun they likely would have stopped the asshole before he ran out of ammo. Note: Mr. Holmes may well be insane but he was smart enough to choose a theater in Aurora that did not allow people to carry a gun inside. Colorado has a “concealed carry” law and in most theaters you can pack your sidearm.)
David Kopel wrote a piece for the WSJ today (12/17) and points out that all of these shootings occur in “gun free zones” and says, “… these shooters are weaklings and cowards who crumble as soon as an armed person shows up.” Indeed. In the recent Clackamas Mall shooting in Oregon, after killing two people the shooter shot himself as soon as he saw a legally armed citizen aiming his gun at him. While some jurisdictions are allowing teachers to carry guns (Harold Independent School District in Texas just voted to allow teachers to pack heat and Utah already does) the emotionally driven push will be toward further restrictions on guns. This, of course, will accomplish nothing.
Biker Lance Armstrong wrote, “It’s Not About the Bike.” It’s also true it’s not about the gun. Recently 36-year-old Min Yung jun in the Chinese village of Cheng Pin stabbed an 85 year old woman with a kitchen knife then stabbed 22 children between the ages of 6 and 11 outside an elementary school. He cut some of the children’s ears and fingers off. This is the most recent of a string of knife attacks on school children in China and 20 have been killed and 50 injured so far. China does not permit private ownership of firearms. [Editor’s note: China now requires you to register any large kitchen knife purchases with your name, ID card number, address and you must state the purposes of knife use.]
The one thing that all these mass killings have in common is mental illness. The VA Tech shooter had a history of mental problems but privacy laws prevented VA Tech being informed about it. And, because he was never actually committed to an institution, he was able to legally purchase firearms. As Adam Lanza’s life gets dissected we will learn more about this young man’s mental problems. Unfortunately, we will never be able to ask his mother about it and also question her about the wisdom of keeping a collection of guns where he could get his hands on them.
Dr. Steven Segal of the U of California-Berkeley has written extensively on the subject of civil commitment law in the US. The legal system can take credit for making it pretty tough to keep mentally ill people in hospitals where they can get help. He points out in the Kopel piece that the number of beds in state mental hospitals has declined to 1850 levels. Given the amount of money spent on health care, this is difficult to comprehend. He also contends that there is a strong correlation between homicide rates in various states and the strength of their involuntary commitment laws. Clearly, if we want to get a grip on mass shootings the mental health system is a good place to start.
Many people have speculated about the role of bullying, the Goth culture and video games. There seems to be no question that the wall-to-wall media coverage of this stuff seems to be a trigger for some unstable individuals to try to emulate the fame of an Adam Lanza or Dylan Klebold. Already there have been a couple of copycat attempts following the Newtown tragedy. The media needs to take a serious look at how they handle this kind of story.
I’m not too convinced that bullying or the Goth culture has much to do with it. These young men all seem to be social outsiders and as such are likely bullied, and Goth seems to be a place for weirdos anyway. As for video games….. The last game I played was “Frogger” and something with a rolling ball so I am hardly an authority. However, I have seen the ads and many seem to involve a lot of realistic shooting of multiple targets. I suppose most kids can play these games with no ill effects but perhaps one in ten million youngsters with psychological problems will be desensitized and motivated to try shooting real people.
Like I said in my disclaimer preceding this piece, I don’t make any pretense to having a solution. I am quite certain, however, that passing more restrictive gun laws on law-abiding citizens will accomplish nothing. I personally would endorse tightening up restrictions on gun ownership for persons with a history of drug or mental problems. And would not I oppose closing the loopholes on gun shows. But, as a practical matter in a country with an estimated 200 million guns already floating around out there….. Yeah, exactly. This, of course, will not prevent the politicians from bloviating on the matter endlessly.
I agree with you. Unless we can identify and treat mental illness, banning assault weapons to prevent mass murders will be about as effective as airline passengers having to remove their shoes before flying to prevent terrorist hijackings. Sadly, many teachers and peers can tell you right now who many of the future potential criminals are. Some of these children have mental problems, some have unimaginably horrible home lives, and there are a very few who are, for lack of a better word, evil. The latter of which scare the hell out of me. In the past 6 years of working in public schools I have met two. God help us all.