I Told You So: The Explosion of a Misunderstood Mind

What can explain the tragic massacre of Thousand Oaks by a decorated Marine combat veteran? After each tragedy since Columbine, we ask ourselves how could this be? These tragedies create an atmosphere of split loyalties to ideas, an invitation to a constant political argument. The philosophies become weaponized in the media while victim's families become soaked in meaningless rhetoric. New ways to prevent tragedies become stifled.

One thing for sure is any answer to the question of why all these shootings are happening has to include the role of the human mind; there is no one simple answer. This component of the criminal act is the most difficult to understand and demands that problem solvers be on the same page. What makes prevention so difficult is that the crime of mass shooting is highly symbolic, a unique human quality born of the cerebral cortex.

The combat veteran perpetrator at Thousand Oaks was angry that no one understood him. He made the world pay for not understanding him. News reports have shown that this young man was disturbed before he went into the military. This became far more complicated after 5 years in the military and one combat tour. The military contained this young man's mind and offered him a connection to a team. When he was released, he displayed signs of problems that in hindsight seem simple and clearly early warning signs.

So, where did all his anger and hatred come from? He had a loving mother, a home, and was married. He did have some points that might have been caught in a background check, but they were quite common minor criminal activities. Then again, mental illness does not cause this type of behavior, but it should be enough to delay or stop easy access to guns from any legal source. Again, if he wanted to, he could have armed himself illegally. He was a well-trained military man.

In 1999, Columbine was the marquee lethal explosion that became the template for many shootings to follow. On Hitler's birthday, Kliebold and Harris ushered in the new world of mass shootings. At this time, both the FBI and the Secret Service began to study this form of violence since it did not fit the typical mold for adolescent violence. Shortly after Columbine, the FBI organized a conference in Leesburg, Virginia, to explore this new type of violence exhibited in school shooting. At the same time, the Secret Service embarked on a similar mission to understand school shootings from their perspective. This essay hopes to share some of the emerging lessons that began with this study by federal law enforcement.

The key differences between the approaches taken by the FBI (O'Toole 2000) and the Secret Service (Vossekuil et al. 2000) involved whether you focus on the personality such as the FBI or the behavioral approach taken by the Secret Service. They focused on the process of concrete movements a shooter made toward acquiring weapons and targeting attack sites or groups of people engaged in religious, educational, or recreational activities.

The FBI personality profile identified the personality traits of grandiosity and entitlement, an “injustice collector” who feels chronically misunderstood. As the years progressed since Columbine, this appears to be an enduring part of any personality picture of a potential shooter. Being misunderstood humiliates the shooter. He plans to right this perceived wrong with a dramatic show of power.

The Secret Service and FBI both noticed that the time before any of the eruptions of violence was very pressurized, disconnected from society, and symbolically directed to avenge some type of perceived injustice. The FBI identified this pressurized mental environment as evidenced by what they called leakage. DePue and DePue (1999) capture this process aptly, “violent fantasy is a crime in process.” Fantasy is a shooter's workshop. Most shooters leak some aspect of their plans before the explosion of violence. They do tell us, we do not listen.

The Secret Service began to assess a potential shooter based on the concrete movements they made in achieving the goal of acquiring what is necessary for an attack (Fein et al. 1995; Reddy-Pynchon and Borum 1999). This is where the grandiosity and callousness of the shooters can be seen. Someone who feels that their personal grievances are worth the lives of 20 children and seven adults at Sandy Hook is a graphic example of the enormous amount of entitlement and grandiosity that exists within the shooters. Early warnings will appear during this preparation phase.

Both the FBI and Secret Service agreed on the role of bullying in creating shame that seems to be a known motivational ingredient in the school shooters. A closer study of school violence has revealed the critical role of the bystander in the dialectic of violence between a victim and a victimizer (Twemlow and Sacco 2012). Now, the Internet provides the grandstands for a world-wide bystanding audience constantly connected by digital media. Alienated and disconnected people can easily find a voice confirming their private injustices on the Internet.

Mass shootings such as Thousand Oaks are highly symbolic actions that defy any single diagnostic category. They are murderous acts that are driven by a personal experience of shame at being misunderstood. Gilligan (1996) reflecting on 20 years' experience as a psychiatrist in Massachusetts state prisons, posits that shame leads to violence. Being ignored or not listened to creates a personal (not reality based) wound causing shame in the shooter. Hate may become the salve to ease the shooter's pain. Once the shooter's hate motivates a vengeance plan, the shooter experiences relief. Pressure mounts as the plan evolves with invisible support from the Internet and no alternatives available in daily interactions with other people.

The federal agencies identified that these school shootings were not typical crimes of impulse. The FBI referred to this type of crime as mission oriented. This clearly points to the shooter making a plan. Much similar to suicide, the planning of a lethal event will stop the shooter’ suffering. The potential shooter soothes himself with the idea that the planned lethal attack will even the score offering him a sense of psychological relief. Since the person is disconnected, there is tragically little to stop the murderous impulses from evolving from fantasy to action.

Symbolism plays a large role in the selection of a general place for the attack. Modern shootings seem to increasingly involve anger at other's connection, joy, and peace. This may be the shooter's way of letting the world know that he was deprived of understanding. This all happens as the shooter's mind becomes disconnected from reality with the world evaporating into a bystander. The shooter begins to feel invisible, unworthy, and in desperate need of recognition. The symbolic other becomes the enemy.

What's a society supposed to do? Society must not become a bystander. This means everybody, starting with our leaders, needs to get involved. When people are subjected to shame, they complain, nobody listens, they disconnect, and we bystanders do not notice. Hatred fuels the creation of a shooter's personal plan to right his injustice by punishing those invisible others who did not listen. “I told you so!”

So, as a society, let us stay connected and try to listen. Division promotes disconnection. Compassion and caring for others disappear into selfishness and fear of others. Most shooters are white males born in the United States; safety begins at home, in our own hearts and minds. Altruism may be the only antidote to hatred.