It was just over a year ago I wrote about Pulse and some subsequent but unrelated shootings, and it's that time again, I guess.
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I've read about thousands of terrorist attacks, lone wolf attacks, attacks against former/current partners, and revenge attacks over the last 15 years of my life, and they all run together. We know the shape of this thing. We argue about WHY, but a lot of times I think we lose that question under the deluge of factors involved in WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, HOW.
A lot of attacks have come from a lot of disparate ideologies in the last few months, and that's because while ideology is relevant to the way a killer chooses their victims, and sometimes to the method by which they choose to kill, it is fundamentally irrelevant to the act of violence itself.
Looking up news articles this morning I found an unrelated shooting from 2009 which apparently happened just up the street from my current office. From the article: "He had written about contemplating carrying out a shooting, which he referred to as the "exit plan", while also revealing that he "chickened out" of carrying out such a shooting earlier in the year."
The dude in question was lonely and blamed women for his plight, but that's not why he shot people.
Self-radicalization, we call it. Isolation plus fringe ideas fed to us by groups we admire plus a sense of shame, humiliation, or resentment against a group that has stolen something you think is yours.
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The process goes like this:
You are lonely and deeply unhappy. You are almost certainly a man, but maybe a boy, and you have few or no close friends (other than perhaps a partner or former partner)
A group tells you, or you hear, directly or indirectly, that someone else is to blame for your misery
They tell you that some else stole something that was rightfully yours: work, opportunities, happiness, love, pride, wealth, power
They tell you that someone else has humiliated you by doing so
You listen
You isolate yourself further
You create your own mental or physical manifesto to consolidate your problems into chains of of causal relationships
Your views become fringe enough that you fear sharing them with others. If there are groups that shares your views, this drives you closer to them. If not, you withdraw further into yourself
You become even lonelier
You toy with the idea of fighting back. You make plans, vague or concrete
Sometimes something happens that makes you decide you have nothing else worth living for. Sometimes the isolation and misery is enough to lead you to that conclusion
You seek out the people who are, in your eyes, the source of the problem
You need to restore your pride by taking something from them, by showing them you're powerful. You won't accept their insult any longer
You have nothing left to lose, anyway
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The people shot this morning were almost incidental targets, selected based on the killers' specific ideologies and situations, which are broadly relevant. But while Pulse was Homophobic Radical Islam, Portland was White Supremacy/Islamophobia, this morning was Anti-Trump and GOP, Collier Township guy was Misogyny, etc., that's only WHO gets targeted, not WHY.
The same kinda thing goes with method of attack and existing societal archetypes: gun laws, security, access to weapons, historical precedent for weapons used, etc. That addresses the HOW and WHERE and WHEN.
Don't get me wrong: these are ALL vital questions, and need to be answered in order to create a path to prevention or deterrence.
If there's a lot of rising White Supremacy, expect an uptick in violence against POC, and expect reciprocal acts of violence that target White Supremacists. Track hate groups. Find where extremists hang out online.
In places without guns, expect people to use knives or trucks or bombs, and plan accordingly. In places with guns, find better ways to get them out of the hands of those with prior histories of violence.
Resist the tropes that glorify murder, the tropes that force men into stereotypical roles, the tropes that increase our tribalism.
Keep in mind other factors that correlate with violence and help mitigate those conditions: poverty and deprivation, race/class/gender/etc. inequality, longstanding social/tribal/sectarian tension, physical and mental health access, media consumption, political climate, prevalence of lead in the environment, etc.
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All of these are incredibly important. But this pattern listed above is generally the difference between the people who DO kill people and the ones who DON'T.
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