No one can accurately predict who will be the next American mass killer. Not you, not I, not schoolteachers or psychologists, not police officers, not Governor Abbott, not Wayne LaPierre, not parents, not priests, not spouses, probably not even forensic psychiatrists. Mass killers aren't even typically classifiable as "mentally ill," so general calls for better mental health, although always welcome, are unlikely to prevent such human slaughter events as Columbine, Charleston, Sandy Hook, Parkland, El Paso, Las Vegas, Buffalo, or Uvalde.
None of us can predict when or where, but we can predict (sadly with certainty) that there will be another, and another...
Criminology and criminal justice professors Jillian Peterson and James Densley, funded by the National Institute of Justice, compiled life histories of 180 American mass public-place shooters since 1966 and all mass shootings in schools, workplaces, and places of worship since 1999, in their 2021 book The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic.
They identified shooter characteristics: male, early childhood trauma (violence in the home, sexual assault, parental suicide, extreme bullying), hopelessness, despair, isolation, self-loathing, rejection by peers, previous suicide attempts. Self-hate turned outward to blame a group: a race, a religious congregation, women, school classmates.
Profiling Killers: ID-ing Mass Shooters Before They Strike
COMMENTARY
Profiling Killers: ID-ing Mass Shooters Before They Strike
George D. Lundberg, MD
DisclosuresJune 07, 2022
No one can accurately predict who will be the next American mass killer. Not you, not I, not schoolteachers or psychologists, not police officers, not Governor Abbott, not Wayne LaPierre, not parents, not priests, not spouses, probably not even forensic psychiatrists. Mass killers aren't even typically classifiable as "mentally ill," so general calls for better mental health, although always welcome, are unlikely to prevent such human slaughter events as Columbine, Charleston, Sandy Hook, Parkland, El Paso, Las Vegas, Buffalo, or Uvalde.
None of us can predict when or where, but we can predict (sadly with certainty) that there will be another, and another...
Criminology and criminal justice professors Jillian Peterson and James Densley, funded by the National Institute of Justice, compiled life histories of 180 American mass public-place shooters since 1966 and all mass shootings in schools, workplaces, and places of worship since 1999, in their 2021 book The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic.
They identified shooter characteristics: male, early childhood trauma (violence in the home, sexual assault, parental suicide, extreme bullying), hopelessness, despair, isolation, self-loathing, rejection by peers, previous suicide attempts. Self-hate turned outward to blame a group: a race, a religious congregation, women, school classmates.
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Cite this: George D. Lundberg. Profiling Killers: ID-ing Mass Shooters Before They Strike - Medscape - Jun 07, 2022.
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Authors and Disclosures
Authors and Disclosures
Author(s)
George D. Lundberg, MD
Consulting Professor, Health Research Policy, Pathology, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California
Disclosure: George D. Lundberg, MD, has disclosed the following relevant financial relationships:
Serve(d) as a director, officer, partner, employee, advisor, consultant, or trustee for: CollabRx
Received income in an amount equal to or greater than $250 from: The New York Times