How We All Miss the Point on School Shootings
May 27, 2014 • by Mark Manson•
n 1998, a high school junior named Eric Harris from Colorado wanted to put on a performance, something for the world to remember him by. A little more than a year later, Eric and his best friend Dylan Klebold would place bombs all over their school — bombs large enough to collapse large chunks of the building and to kill the majority of the 2,000 students inside — and then wait outside with semi-automatic weapons to gun down any survivors before ending their own lives.
“It’ll be like the LA riots, the Oklahoma bombing, WWII, Vietnam, Duke and Doom all mixed together,” Eric wrote in his journal. “Maybe we will even start a little rebellion or revolution to fuck things up as much as we can. I want to leave a lasting impression on the world.”
Eric was a psychopath, but he was also smart.
Despite what media outlets would later claim, Eric Harris was not the victim of bullying any more than other students, he was not a goth or a member of the “Trench Coat Mafia.” Eric was a straight-A student. He read Nietzsche and Hemingway for fun. He had friends and girlfriends. He was charming and funny and had a disarming smile.
But Eric also understood people. And because he understood people, he changed everything.
By 1999, there had already been a series of school shootings across the United States. But Eric wasn’t interested in those. They were small-time jobs, amateur hour. Eric was far more interested in Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, which killed 168 and injured 600. Eric wanted to top that. But he didn’t just want to top the body count, he wanted to top the notoriety, the fame, the horror. He wanted to terrorize people and he understood that his best weapon was not the guns he secretly purchased or the bombs he built in his basement — it was television. He would not kill jocks or preps, he would kill indiscriminately, because that’s what caused the most fear and got the most attention. He wouldn’t just blow up the school, but he’d blow up the parking lot, the police cars and the firefighters and the journalists who rushed to the scene. He would, quite literally, go out with a bang, the shockwaves of which, carried by mass media and the internet, would reverberate through the world for decades.
On April 20th, Eric and Dylan arrived at Columbine and opened fire at teachers, students, administrators, janitors and police officers. Eric’s largest bombs failed to detonate and bring the building down as he had hoped, but that did not prevent the ensuing carnage that would last for almost an hour and leave 15 dead and 24 wounded.
As chaos engulfed the school in Colorado, it would quickly fan out across the country, commanding more or less 24-hour television coverage for weeks on end. The drama would be replayed endlessly — bloodied and crippled students climbing out of the library window, the heroic coach who lost his life saving dozens of kids. And then there would be the questions and the speculation. Why? First it was goth culture and Marilyn Manson. Then it was bullying. Then it was being social loners and outcasts.
All of the explanations were later discovered to be untrue. The event truly seemed inexplicable. And because it was inexplicable the media and the viewers couldn’t let it go. Books were written. Memorials were built and ceremonies filled out. Eric Harris got his death wish: “Columbine” was a household name.
This past weekend, a student named Elliot Rodger from Santa Barbara City College killed six and injured 13, the latest in a long series of school shootings that are all but becoming a normal part of American tradition. As usual, the killer left a cache of material behind to explain his intentions and milk as much publicity for his personal grievances as possible. This time, the focus was on women, and how they wouldn’t have sex with him.
Like they always do, the media have descended to explain away the madness. And like a Rorschach Test, each outlet had its own pet cause primed and ready to be read into the situation.
All of these issues are legitimate and deserve conversation. But they are not the singular cause. They’re not the point.Quote:
Gun control advocates used the event as an opportunity to campaign for stricter gun control, despite the fact that Rodger bought his guns legally and easily passed the background checks.
Mental health advocates used it as an opportunity to urge better mental health care, despite the fact that Rodger had a small army of therapists and social workers working with him for practically his entire life.
Feminists used it as an opportunity to promote awareness for violence against women, despite the fact that Rodger killed indiscriminately and the majority of the victims turned out to be men.
Social justice advocates used it as an opportunity to rail against white male entitlement, despite the fact that Rodger was mixed race and a significant number of school shooters have also been minorities (Two examples: Seung-Hui Cho and Kimveer Gill).
Because of my book, I’m connected within the men’s dating advice industry. And many of them are scrambling right now. Elliot Rodger was a member of a number of sites, email lists and Facebook groups. And all of these authors and dating coaches — some of them legitimately decent men, others shady marketers — are all frantically trying to cover their tracks as best as possible.
But this “witch hunt” we go through every time a school shooting happens is a total ruse. Elliot Rodger didn’t become a killer because he was a misogynist; he became a misogynist because he was a killer. Just like Eric Harris didn’t become a killer because he loved violent video games; he loved violent video games because he was a killer. Just like Adam Lanza didn’t become a killer because he loved guns; he loved guns because he was a killer.
Every school shooting incident comes in the same dreary package: an angry, politically-charged rant, shrink-wrapped around a core of mental illness and neglect. These shooters leave behind journals, videos, diagrams, manifestos and treatises. They broadcast their plans and intentions to their friends and family. They email news outlets minutes before they start firing. They write down their plans and make checklists so that others may follow in their footsteps. They go on angry rants against materialism, hedonism, the government, mass media, women, and sometimes even the people close to them.
And each time, as a culture, we work ourselves into a frenzy debating the angry exterior message, while ignoring the interior life and context of each killer. We miss the point entirely.
Reality Check
According to the FBI, mass shootings (defined as shooting events that kill at least four people) occur on average every two weeks in the United States. Yes, every two weeks. Yet we rarely, if ever, hear about most of them. The reason is because these shootings are easily explainable. In most mass shootings, the crimes occur at a private location and the victims are people close and well-known to the shooter — family members, neighbors, friends. Many of them are attributable to gang violence or illicit criminal activities. Others are a crime of passion.
School shootings only account for 4% of all mass shootings and yet they dominate the news media and get the entire country talking about them for weeks on end.
There are a few reasons for this:
1.They occur in everyday public locations which are supposed to be safe.
2.The victims are targeted and killed at random.
3.The victims are innocent bystanders and often children.
4.The killers leave behind large amounts of material about themselves for the media to share.
5.The perpetrator and victims are generally upper-middle class, white, and privileged.
These shooters know what they are doing. They’re not “crazy.” They don’t just “snap.” Most of them spend months or years planning their massacres. Elliot Rodger had apparently been planning his shooting for over a year. You don’t just show up with a 140-page manifesto and a large stockpile of weapons one day. You work at it for a long time. And you plan not only the violence, but the presentation for the audience, the performance — what they will see from you, what they will hear from you, the reasons why, the message. It’s all very conscious and deliberate.
And it works. Their killing sprees are specifically targeted to generate the most fear and uncertainty from the public, because the more fear and uncertainty they generate, the more attention they get. They then use all of the attention as a platform to promote themselves or whatever complaints they may have against society. It’s the Columbine formula. It works. And as Eric Harris pointed out in his journal, it’s not about the guns. It’s about the television. The films. The fame. The revolution.
If this sounds like a familiar strategy, that’s because it is.
http://markmanson.net/school-shootin...ampaign=buffer
