Whenever a mass shooting is reported, whether in the United States or some other country, the inevitable questions arise over what may have motivated the shooter to go on a rampage.
While the term "public mass shooting" typically applies to incidents with four or more victims, the distinction is usually lost on the ones traumatized by witnessing an active shooting, regardless of the actual number of victims involved. Admittedly, there has been a tremendous increase in mass shootings in the past few years. In fact, the five deadliest incidents in U.S. history occurred since 2007 alone, with the average number of victims increasing 47 percent since 2010.
There is also intense speculation over how such tragedies might be prevented, typically by focusing on presumed "causes" such as mental illness, easy availability of guns, or whether they play "shoot-em-up" video games, were bullied, belong to a radical organization, etc. But this fails to explain why the overwhelming majority of people who fall into the same categories do not become mass shooters.
To read more, check out my new Psychology Today blog post.
Comments