The Making Of A Mass Murderer

Please note that the following comments are not intended to justify or legitimize mass murder. We all have to take responsibility for our actions and shooting people, innocent or guilty, is not, under any circumstances, a legitimate response to harassment. There can be no excuses for this type of reaction, and those who do it belong in jail and should not be romanticized.

My intent is to simply explore the issue.

The Making Of A Mass Murderer

Get a shy, vulnerable, sensitive child, or, a child with an existing mental illness.

Add distant parents who, for one reason or another, either cannot or choose not to be there for the child (psychologically, emotionally, physically and/or a combination of these). Or, if the parents are there for the child, they aren't able to get the services the child needs, for any number of reasons.

Add teachers in overcrowded classrooms who are too busy to see the warning signs, and ensure there is no funding to provide teachers or staff to supervise the school grounds. Or, if an alert teacher does see the warning signs, the programs aren't available because they don't exist, they're full or they're too short term to be of any help.

Add schools which don't have zero tolerance policies against harassment and bullying.

Put the child in a school environment where he is made fun of, picked on, bullied, terrorized, and harassed on an ongoing and daily basis.

If he is shy and vulnerable, ensure that he feels alone, even more vulnerable and frightened, and that absolutely no-one cares about what is happening to him.

If he is mentally ill, ensure that he is not diagnosed and/or treated for his illness, or, don't ensure that he follows his treatment plan, and that he feels like absolutely no-one cares about what is happening to him.

If he is shy and vulnerable, he'll internalize all the hate directed against him and it will develop into a malignant hate which he directs against a world which his experience has shown him is a cold, hostile, unfriendly place, as well as those who abused him.

If he is mentally ill, and not properly diagnosed and/or treated, it won't matter whether the environment is hostile or friendly since he'll over react to perceived slights whether they in fact occurred or not. He is incapable of seeing the world in any other way.

A school shooter is born.

Do the same thing in the work place or in your community to create other types of shooters.