America, we need to talk. This is an intervention. The rest of us have been discussing your habit of mass shootings, and school shootings in particular and - well, we don't want to give you the impression that we've been talking behind your back - but... yeah, okay so we've been talking about you. And we decided we had to do something. It's not because we want to make you feel bad. We want to help you. Certainly, you must have noticed that the others have been distancing themselves from you lately. You've seemed a little off. Whether they realize it consciously or not, they know something is not right with you and, frankly, they're a little afraid of you. It doesn't have to be that way. Perhaps you could try taking a step outside yourself and see yourself the way others see you, not as you see you or - more importantly - how you would like others to see you. Let me explain...
Whenever a new mass shooting turns up in the United States, the usual suspects of gun control and mental illness show up. Unfortunately, I think those discussions are actually missing the point. What? Are you one of those second amendment nuts who wants to give a military grade assault rifle to every kid when they're born? Don't be ridiculous, that would mean some kids of illegal immigrants would gets guns and if you thinking the raping and murdering is bad now, just think of what would happen then. We should only give guns to white babies, unless their parents voted for Clinton. But I digress. Even if gun control limits the extent of the damage on a large scale, there is still the lingering question of why these boys reach for those guns in the first place.
Is it a mental health problem then? Well, what illness were the shooters plagued with? Depression? Bi-polar? Schizophrenia? Shitty parents? All of the above and none of the above. That is, some people definitely had something identifiable, but they weren't all the same thing and besides some people didn't. Perhaps they had some undiagnosed mental illness. That's right, all of the mass shooting perpetrators have been suffering from a common mental illness that has heretofore never been heard of and has a mysteriously high incidence in white men and boys. Perhaps. I guess our reaction is to label anyone that does something so horrendous as insane. Mass murder = mental illness by default, because we are measuring illness by symptoms rather than its functioning inside the brain. I'm not a psychologist, a psychiatrist, or even a psychic, but is symptom labeling really helpful in this case for anything besides appeasing our desire to force the world to make sense again?
The guy was a lone wolf gunner with an untreated mental illness. This could have been prevented with a better diagnosis or better parenting.
What we are saying in this case is that it's the fault of those in immediate proximity to the shooter. They weren't paying attention or didn't care or were the cause of the illness to begin with. Or perhaps the guy/kid simply has a screw loose. Lightening hit him and a spark lit up some hidden crazy circuit in his brain and Johnny 5 was off the reservation. So we chalk it up to crazy and go about our day. And the shootings keep happening. So yes, I'll admit that the desire to shoot dozens of innocent people is by definition a mental illness in so far as illness is by definition a deviation from the healthy and non-fatal operation of a human being. Great, it's been classified. So what? Was the point of all that exercise simply to ease our fear that someone who is not a movie villain might start gunning down children? Or worse, was the point to alleviate collective guilt and responsibility? Even pushes to changes legislation, while well meaning and perhaps necessary, are simple solutions that in part may serve to distract us from something much more complex.
What are some other factors we might consider? Well, there definitely seems to be a thread of abuse and neglect running through the lives of these mass shooters. Perhaps a parent was abusive or left or died. Perhaps he was bullied in school. Perhaps he was angry, making him violent, and had trouble connecting with other humans, reducing their humanity to him. This is almost certainly relevant, but a question still borrows in my brain: why these down and outers? Why not others? Entire classes of people have been treated far worse then these suburban white boys. Sometimes the oppressed and repressed will band together and oppose their abusers, sometimes violently and sometimes not. However, such resistance is organized and oriented towards a goal. When violence breaks out, it is strategic in nature and intended to force change. Ok, I'm sorry you got bullied - but where are all DACA kids firing rounds at passersby? Shit, they have more valid claims of bullying and mistreatment. Somehow, they do not succumb to violence. But we seem to have a country full of kids with Xboxes and cars and no chance of deportation who are somehow full of rage. What gives?
Maybe it's the Xboxes. Hah hah, yes grandpa we've been saying that since Pong inspired thousands of teenagers to hit people with paddles and it still isn't the answer. No, really, it was probably the death metal and Marilyn Manson, though most of those kids successfully grew the hell up and pinned down jobs and family. They became boring, like we all do if things are going right. I don't mean to make light of death, only the idea that band T-shirts and combat boots are anything but sound and fury. It influences style, but not behavior. Given any group of teenagers and young adults of sufficient size and you will find two people who present themselves with same signs in symbols, only they are using it to express two different types of identity. And it is just expression. The loud music and violent video games don't make a person a criminal anymore than the guns do. It's just that video games are less lethal to innocent bystanders.
Listen, I'm going to cut the bullshit and tell you what I think. Maybe my thoughts are no more relevant than the next guy's, but in any case I'm warning you that what follows is more sincere than flippant. We talked about identity. Think a little more on that. How much violence has issued from identity? More specifically, how much violence outside the boundaries of state institutions, violence at the hands of people or mobs, issues from identity? A lot of it. I'd say that once you remove violence stemming from physical gain such as robbery, basically all of it comes down to identity. From the jilted lover to ethnic cleansing, a threat to identity is a surprisingly effective motive for murder.
Remember how I asked the question of why groups of people who have more to complain about than your local Conner or Blake who hates his dad are often more capable of restraining violence, especially random violence? When a kid from one of these minority groups gets roughed up by someone outside the group, he is able to associate this abuse with those groups. It has nothing to do with him personally. He just happened to be a handy representative. And he has his own group to return to and to support him. What group do these mass shooters have to turn to? Maybe I'm going out on a limb, but I think it is safe to say that every mass shooter has looked at all the abuse he's suffered, big or small, and taken it personally. African Americans, Armenians, and Jews have all been persecuted as a people. Shooters from Columbine to Sandy Hook to Santa Fe feel personally persecuted, with no one to say hey, don't worry about it, we've got your back. In fact, it may be quite the opposite. After all, they are white males. They are supposed to be privileged. They have no business whining. Also...
be a man
What do you have to complain about?
shut up and stop complaining
Before you say anything, I am not trying to defend murderers. Adam Lanza brutally ended the lives of 20 six and seven year olds. Fuck that guy and let him burn in hell. The point is, as a society are we just looking for easy answers and judgement, or do we want this madness to stop? People suffering an identity crisis can be some of the most dangerous people in the world. It seems that many our boys and men are suffering from a crisis of identity. Maybe you think that's a small problem, but maybe you think that because your own identity shuts you out to considering it a problem. Your mind resists putting itself in their shoes, as if understanding them means legitimizing their thoughts and actions. But it isn't about whether or not a seventeen year old kid has a stunted and entitled view of the world. Of course he does. The whole reason he chooses to shoot up a school is because there is no other world outside that, no bigger stage on which to perform. So of course the identity which is experiencing this crisis is a severely limited one. Nonetheless, it is capable of murder. We need to address what is loosing these white boys from the ground - if not for their sakes, then for the sake of the rest of us.
