What Motivates Mass Murderers

[Marshal Halloway]

We refuse to confront murderers’ motivations, and make high body counts more likely.

By John R. Lott Jr.

Why did a deranged man choose to kill 20 innocent young children in Newtown, Conn.? Immediately after the killing, some speculated that he was jealous of the Sandy Hook students because his mother spent time volunteering at the school.

However, new evidence shows the real motive was likely different: He wanted to try to kill more people than the current mass-shooting record holder, the 2011 Norwegian mass shooter.

More at: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/342150/what-motivates-mass-murderers-john-r-lott-jr

[kmitch200]

Sadly, until the LameStream Media and the politicritters cure their Recto-Cranial Inversion, this will continue.

Why isn't the $$$ amount of a bank robbery given publicly?
Why is an insane freak given worldwide face time for months after a psychotic spree?
Why go after LAW ABIDING gun owners after an anomaly like a mass murder?

The only thing that would help is if a 'gentlemans agreement' was reached between all the media outlets to NOT give the murderer's name ANY mention.
Lot's 'o luck keeping the jackals and hyenas to any agreement that isn't bound by law. 
It could be made mandatory by legally forcing the investigative agencies/officers keep their mouths shut.

Instead we get the Royal Fineswines going after more contol over the people.
Idiocracy....

[MikeBjerum]

Everything he states in this article matches and supports (or is supported by) the studies used in Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and Gloria DeGaetano's book Stop Teaching Our Kids To Kill:  A call to action against TV, Movie & Video Game violence.

[JC5123]

Ok, as a personal opinion. I would like to call bullshit on the whole violent movies and video games making people more prone to kill. I grew up when video games started to become popular. I played my share in my youth, and still enjoy some now and then. I don't have even an inkling to go out and murder. Maybe it is because I was raised around guns and taught about firearms at a very early age. I remember shooting a .22 pistol when I was 4 or 5. (I still have that pistol too) When I was growing up we always had BB guns and pellet guns, .22's. We would go hunt rabbits after school. We were taught how to handle firearms.

But we also watched violent cartoons! GI Joe, and Loony Tunes. (Remember they had guns!!!) We grew up on John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and later Schwarzenegger, and Stallone, OH MY!! How am I not a deranged killer? I think it is very simple. You are either predisposed to be a violent individual, or you're not. You can blame it on upbringing, or education, or circumstance. Whatever. At the end of the day it still boils down to a choice.

I know that I am capable or violence. However I choose to reserve that capacity for use in defense of myself, my loved ones, or my country. Some people choose to harm innocents. But to blame movies, and video games is like saying that country music increases the suicide rate. It's a scapegoat for people who refuse to hold a person accountable for their actions. 

[tombogan03884]

JC, what they are saying is that violating the Second Amendment by controlling guns is bad.
But it's OK to violate the 1st Amendment by controlling content of movies and video games.
Of course the next step will be to control violent content in print, "It's for the children" you know.
Which will mean the end of first person military histories.
Even here you can not get away from the half wits who can not grasp that the problem is PEOPLE.
They're more than happy to give up you're rights, just as long as it isn't their ox getting gored.
They are Fudd's .

[Sponsor]

[alfsauve]

A book on the case of John Joubert chronicles the case with a series of death row interviews.  Joubert was a serial killer in the Omaha area back in the '80's. 

A Need To Kill by Mark Pettit





Disclaimer, Mark is a friend of mine.

[MikeBjerum]

JC,

Read the book!  What you grew up on and what we see today is not the same.  The video games are actually the same style, if not the same actual, game system.  the Fire Arms Training Simulator (FATS) used by most law enforcement agencies in the country is almost identical to the game Time Crisis, and the game Doom which is jokingly referred to in Wild Hogs as the training course for the Sheriff and his deputies has a version called Marine Doom which is the same game adapted to Marine training settings.

I could write more than you care to read here of the testimony of shooters concerning their only firearm training being from video games and how the games directed their actions.

Read the book!  $11.00 at Amazon, and it will not only shock you, but start you reading and researching more.  The gaming industry is using our children as R&D for military and law enforcement training tools, and it is not only successful, but it is destroying us.

[JC5123]

I don't doubt your data, however show me something that proves that these media take choice away from a person. You are falling into the trap of asking why, and trying to assign blame to something other than the individual. I doubt you blame anything other than yourself for any mistakes you have made in your life, and you don't expect anyone to make excuses for you. So why are you so quick to try to blame something other than the perp? You will tell me that your guns are not complicate in murder, so why would a video game be at fault. Or a movie? Millions of other people watched the same movie, played the same game, or listened to the same music, and didn't go and murder anyone.
 
So what if these games have been adapted as training tools. They probably work really well. But they don't force you to commit a crime.

[MikeBjerum]

Where are the families, churches, schools, and social organizations in helping the players of these games in understanding right from wrong?

I am not calling for censorship in any way, but our society has failed in recent decades in communicating appropriate ways of dealing with our anger, pain, frustrations, and even hate.  When you leave a void like that other influences will fill the vacuum.  Each case is different as to what opened the door to this, but the evidence is clear as to one source of filler material.

I would much rather change this emotional cry to repeal the Second Amendment to a movement of sound child rearing.  Full enjoyment of the First Amendment, full enjoyment of the Second Amendment, and happy families enjoying all things in moderation.  However, if we are not going to recognize the facts we are our own enemy when it comes to supporting those trying to take our Second Amendment protections away.

Are guns the problem?  No. 
Are video games the problem?  No. 
Is curiosity concerning tools and technology natural?  Yes. 
Can we expect undeveloped minds to understand right from wrong and to act in a proper manor without direction?  No. 
So, where do we put the blame?  I choose the social structure that puts its children in front of media with no parental nurture or support.

Early in the life of television families would watch an informational program together.  When the program was over they would turn the set off and discuss what they watched.  This was an extension of normal life in the era.  However, as a business television executives learned that they needed the sets on with viewers if they were going to sell advertising, so they kept tweaking their programs until it became a non-stop excitement fix that eliminated quiet time and family time.  The evolution continued and grew.

Combine this media evolution with the break down in the American family, and you have an seed bed waiting to nurture anything that comes along.  In recent decades much of this seed has come in the form of rapidly expanding violent technology.  Combine this new technology with broken family and community structures, and a useful tool (gun), and we wonder why people blame us for violent actions committed by bad eggs.

After that lengthy and audience losing introduction, the direct answer to your final question is that the games do not force anyone to act.  But, they do cause those with some other issue to react in a way that the game has taught them will be rewarded.

I don't have the answer for society as a whole, but I do know what I do to avoid this.  I support family activity and closeness, I support community recreation of all types that includes all ages and abilities in a way that shows both loss and gain, I support church activities that reinforce morals and values, and I make sure that desensitation is replaced by the knowledge that every action good and bad has an affect on others.

[JLawson]

I don't doubt your data, however show me something that proves that these media take choice away from a person.

It's not about taking choice away from a person... it's about influencing the choice a person makes.  The proof that visual images, engineered soundtracks, and socio-psychological manipulation influences behavior is all around us everyday.  Advertising, a $500 billion industry, has only one purpose... to influence those who are exposed to its message.  It influences the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the car we drive, even the gun and ammo we carry.  This is proof that what a person sees, hears, and synthesizes cognitively have a direct impact on their beliefs and actions.  In advertising, that influence is purposeful.  In violent movies and games, that influence may be unintended but it is every bit as powerful.  This accidental influence is even more powerful when experienced by the emotionally vulnerable or mentally ill.

It's not about blaming the movie or the game.  It's about understanding that powerful stimuli - such as those provided by the movie or the game - can influence broken people to do bad things.  So here is the question that we, as a society, struggle to answer... do we approach this problem by dealing with the broken people or by controlling the stimuli ?