Mass killing is the endpoint of a pathway that begins many years earlier. In its earliest stages, the mass killer blames others for shortcomings and socially has difficulty fitting in. As he grows into adolescence, he has great sexual insecurity and identifies with the expression of masculinity through destructiveness, particularly with weapons. As this person matures, he becomes increasingly familiar with being a misfit, outcast, or awkward, and eventually embraces this identity. At the same time, this alienated person hardens in patterns of blaming others for his social alienation and repeated sexual rejection and incompetence. As alienation grows, his resentment grows to contempt for others in general. When he identifies with the choices of other mass killers and sees himself in their striking out against neighbors they hate, his fantasy life begins to entertain his own dramatic destructiveness. Along the way, the mass killer may foster and then become invested in a grievance that fuels his contempt for those around him. He does not fall into the cracks, but crawls into the cracks to protect his deep hatred. That grievance may even be delusional, or just self-serving. But he protects the grievance, and at the point when he decides others around him deserve to die, the clock is ticking. At the point when the killer believes his once-higher hopes for himself will never happen, he chooses to embark on a mass killing, to pass from anonymity and marginality to a story that is relevant to all.
Knowing these common qualities, we should appreciate that mass killing can be eliminated if parents, neighbors, the general public, teachers, priests and houses of worship, mental health professionals, media, law enforcement, and government officials fulfill their respective roles. Each of these sectors -- and collectively, all of us – can eliminate mass killing.
What You Can Do as Parents – First, teach your children to take personal responsibility. A child who is instilled with taking ownership of responsibility is not inclined to blame others, and so will never come close to the patterns of blame that generalize to those he has never met.
Next, do not promote a child’s identification with destructiveness. You cannot control to what he is exposed in school. There are many such ills to which you cannot absolutely prevent your child from being introduced, such as alcohol and drugs. Still, you do not buy your child cocaine – so why would you buy him the violent video games that desensitize him to killing others on screen – and maybe elsewhere? There is nothing to be gained from a steady diet that shows people to be defiled in any number of gory, grotesque, dismemberment and mutilations. There is much to be lost from movies and games that are filmed, scripted, and edited to attach the stimuli of extreme violence to excited arousal – and this damages your children with no way to give them back what they lose. Video games successfully train soldiers to dehumanize the enemy. But your child is not a soldier, and since he has no battlefield, the only people around him to be dehumanized from his escaping to video games are the neighbors of your community or his school.
Most people can actively enjoy violent video games without attacking and murdering others, just as most people can handle their alcohol and addictive drugs. But if you would not want to support your child’s use of addictive drugs, whatever the consequence, and would not want to pay for it, because of the consequences of being wrapped up in these habits and the lifestyle of its consequence, why would you pay for their fix of violence? Violent movie, television, gaming, and other entertainment are designed to be addictive. In that regard, it is no different from tobacco. Please stop paying for violent entertainment. Any and all of it. It’s not as hard as you think. If you stop feeding the economy of violent entertainment, there will be no demand to be fed. If you stop paying for violent media to bombard the senses of your child, that violence will disappear.
Next, promote resilience in your children. Teach them to respond when knocked down, to fight back when behind, to come back when defeated or losing. Demonstrate examples to them of resilience and tenacity of spirit. The child and adolescent who learns that people can overcome will never be hopeless to opt for a legacy of destructive fame, or recognition at all costs in a celebrity culture, to soothe disappointed high expectations.
Next: What You Can Do as Neighbors
