Journalist Ron Franscell is the bestselling author of DELIVERED FROM EVIL, a
vivid exploration of the lives of 10 mass-killing survivors. His website is www.ronfranscell.com
By Ron Franscell
This is America, dammit, and we have a God-given right to fool ourselves.
The bodies of dead children hadn’t even been cleared from the
classrooms at Sandy Hook Elementary before various lobbies began
trumpeting their end-all solutions to mass murder—just as they have
since 1949, the dawn of mass murder’s modern era.
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| George Hennard's jammed handgun, Luby's 1991 |
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Not
all of these fixes are bad ideas, but they simply won’t halt mass
murder. At best, we can hope to thwart some massacres and save some
lives, but determined, angry killers will still exist and occasionally
wreak havoc. At worst, we could surrender a lot of freedoms--and still
not stop these horrific, frustrating massacres.
Since 1900, America has suffered about 150 public mass murders. Some
are now code words for national tragedy:
Columbine,
Texas Tower,
Luby’s,
Sandy Hook. The death toll has been less than 1,000 people, accounting
for less than one-tenth of 1 percent of all murder in America in the
same period. Statistically, we have much bigger problems.
Yet mass murder grabs us by the throat every time. It’s partly
because it often happens in familiar, “safe” places … a McDonald’s
restaurant, a church, a shopping mall, government offices, schools,
festivals. And its victims are almost always innocents who, like us on
any ordinary day in any ordinary place, were not expecting to die. We
can easily imagine being in their place.
Plus, we’re always flummoxed by the enigma of mass murder. Too
often, nobody’s left to explain why it happened. And in those rare
times when we’ve gotten answers, they are historically confusing,
irrational, and disappointing. We spend a lot of energy trying to
explain the unexplainable.
Mass murderers tend to be angry young men who are retaliating against
personal rejections, failures, slights both real and imagined, and a
perceived loss of independence. They are usually loners but not
necessarily unsociable. Most are disturbed, but not necessarily
psychotic. Their crime is usually triggered by a major loss or
disappointment, such as a break-up or job loss.
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| Charles Whitman, Texas Tower shooter, 1966 |
The revenge-oriented mass killer is trying to get
even with specific people, particular categories or groups of
individuals, or society at large. He is trying to regain some measure of
control over a life he sees spiraling out of control.
So we know plenty about mass murderers … but we have not yet
developed any science that can foil a murderous rampage that leaves no
trace until too late. Sadly, most mass murderers -- right up until they
kill -- do nothing that would cause a reasonable society to identify and
restrain them.
The default “fix” has always been gun control. Ignoring that seven
of the 10 deadliest mass murders in American history were not committed
with guns, this isn’t as much a rational debate as an uncivil war. The
trenches are dug deep and the battle lines shift by inches, not miles.
Yes, we should be more pro-active about preventing lunatics and
criminals from owning guns. But we already know that will be an
uncomfortable process in a country where even being scanned by an
airport machine is considered an intolerable intrusion by many.
And taking away guns won’t remove the root causes of mass murder,
merely limit one of the killers’ tools, which have also included
fertilizer bombs, knives, fire, poison, water, cars, boats, crossbows,
and woodworking tools. A determined killer might be slowed down, but
not stopped by more gun laws, but even if guns were outlawed
completely, determined killers have always found ways to kill.
More/better/cheaper/quicker mental health care? Certainly. But very
few of America’s most prolific mass murderers – or the people around
them -- believed they had mental-health issues. Few would have
voluntarily sought help, and the mere suggestion that they were crazy
would have exacerbated their feelings of rejection, failure, and loss of
control.
Fortifying
schools? That might have stalled Adam Lanza, but most school massacres
have been done by students who were already inside, not monsters from
the outside.
A crappy economy, desensitization to violence in the media, and
deteriorating civility are also contributing factors. “Fixing” those
things poses more daunting challenges than mass murder.
Another unique obstacle is our collective social ADD. When the next
massacre happens, we’ll be shocked. In time—maybe a week or two—we’ll
be distracted. Soon enough, we’ll forget altogether. Time erodes
feeling and creates indifference. Americans are condemned to be
shocked, to grow complacent, then to forget … then to be shocked all
over again. It keeps us from the long, arduous work of solving a
complex problem.
Is it not fascinating that one of America’s deadliest public
rampages—a madman’s 1927 s
chool bombing in Bath, Michigan, that killed
45 people, mostly children—is all but forgotten in the Twenty-first
century?
Yes, we owe it to the innocent dead to seek answers. We should
devote ourselves to saving as many lives as possible while protecting
the constitutional rights of law-abiding people. It’s a delicate
balance that won’t lend itself to 144-character Tweets or glib Facebook
updates.
But no matter what “fixes” we introduce, we should not fool ourselves that we have ended mass murder.
