Does social isolation of nerds in suburban settings lead to mass shootings at schools?

[wayfaroutthere]

I agree with most of it. I think that in her attempts to explain the "outsider" mentality that she over-simplifies teen relationships. I'm not sure it's peer respect that these kids are trying to accomplish, I think that a lack of peer respect is the reason for their outburst. It is a rejection of all those who rejected the loner. I don't think they believe that following the shooting, they will gain respect. It is an admission of failure to get that respect, and giving up by destroying those who judged him. I do buy into the 'blaze of glory' illusions contributing to this.

I'm not sure whether the media really causes this, but it probably reinforces it. We've all seen a movie hero get thousands of rounds fired at him and make it out alive. This means that going up against SWAT doesn't need to feel as suicidal as it actually is. A shooter could set the chain of events that would lead to his death in motion without feeling like he was committing suicide.

To sum up--I'm glad someone is taking a look like Newman is. If we are going to prevent this kind of thing from happening in the future, we need to understand why it happens in the first place. I don't want to psychoanalyze the killers for their own sake or their own glory--they can rot in jail. But I do think that shutting the killers away or killing them without finding out why is a waste. Finding out how and why people lose it and being able to spot the warning signs before they go too far is really the only way to (maybe) stop this from happening in the future. We can babble about movies, games, and guns all we like--but if you can't stop crazy people from doing crazy stuff, then what good does any of that do? Finding out why they do it is the first step in stopping them.

[Meg]

Even though there is more crime in inner cities there are very few mass shooting in them, so it is related to where the shooters live.

[balloon buster]

I think its more of a symptom than a cause. I suspect the same factors that cause the mass shootings display differently in different cultural settings. I am intrigued by a recent article I read that links the use of tetra ethyl lead in gasoline to the overall rates of violence and asocial behavior. I'm not endorsing either theory, but I do think they at least can serve as a useful starting point to figure this out with.