The Next Mass Shooter

Last updated on: June 21, 2015 at 2:05 pm by Jeremy Neill

The Next Mass Shooter 2015-06-21T14:05:39-06:00 Jeremy Neill

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Right now, even as I write this, the next mass shooter is noticing the media attention being given to Dylann Roof. The wheels are turning in his mind as he sees how everyone is dissecting Dylann Roof’s motives and wondering how a crime so terrible could have happened. He is thinking to himself: “Huh. This kid sure got worldwide attention by killing nine people. He brought attention to his cause too. And the kid was stupid – he showed his face to a security camera and he didn’t even pick a high powered weapon. I bet if I was smarter and killed a bunch more people than he did then everyone would pay attention to me too.” And with reasoning like this, the next mass shooter will start to put his plan into practice. He will pick his weapon(s) and perhaps will get some weapons training. He will select a target – a church, a school, a summer camp, a business park, a McDonald’s. Perhaps he will think for a while about not doing it. After all, to do the horrific deed that he is contemplating will be to sacrifice the rest of his life. But the lure of the worldwide media attention will be too great. And so, not too many months from now, and when the media firestorm surrounding the Charleston shooting has died down, he will strike with all his might upon unsuspecting innocents.

Don’t think it’s going to happen this way? Read the news accounts about these guys’ psychologies. Almost all of these mass shootings are following the script I have outlined. While there sometimes are other motives involved – Dylan Roof appears to have been a heinous racist – the desire for fame is the major accelerator that is too great for these guys to resist. And in a certain sense, all of us who are tracking this Charleston story are giving these killers exactly what they want – the recognition that is only possible in a worldwide media age. Think about it for a minute, because this is a hard idea to accept. You and I, sitting in our living rooms and tracking the Charleston shooting on television or via articles on the internet, are in a certain sense creating the possibility conditions for the next mass shooting. I am not by any means saying that we are complicit in the future killings. Let me underscore this – I am not in any way saying that we media watchers are participants in the crimes themselves. But what I am saying is that in tracking this story we are giving these guys exactly what they want – attention to themselves and their wacko causes. And the attention is precisely the reason why they act.

The mass killer or shooter is a product of the media age. He is not a phenomenon you could have found, say, in nineteenth century America, in which there was no mass media industry. He is a product of a culture whose youth want nothing more badly than to be famous. The great majority of kids growing up in America right now want to be stars – singers, actors, newscasters, Youtube hits, you name it. Many of these kids will go on to seek stardom in conventional ways. But the kids whose minds become twisted want stardom too. And there is no easier way to get that stardom than to do some horrendous deed. Think back to the mass killers of the last few years – the Columbine killers, Andreas Lubitz (the Germanwings pilot), Seung-Hui Cho (the Virginia Tech shooter), and Adam Lanza (the Sandy Hook shooter) – in all of these cases the authorities found evidence suggesting that these killers’ intention was to become famous. “Someday the world will know my name” was the thought that was central to the mind of Andreas Lubitz before he crashed his Germanwings plane into the mountainside, killing all aboard.

If the mass killer is a product of the media age, what can be done? I propose two solutions. The first is that we all – collectively – pay less attention to the news accounts about the tragedies. Yes, we should mourn the victims. Yes, we should pray for the families. But then we’ve got to move on and not give these guys the attention they are seeking. For the sake of preventing future tragedies, we need collectively to choose to decelerate the fame cycle that is incentivizing these killings. I have read one Washington Post story about the Charleston killing and after that I have voluntarily read no more stories and watched no television reports.

Second, I propose that the media not mention the murderer’s name and not show his face to the public. This will be incredibly hard for media outlets to resist – after all, the more sordid the killer’s back story, the more dramatically the viewing audience will spike. But if the CEOs of media outlets in fact have a genuine desire to prevent future tragedies, they’ve got to know that their refusal to pay attention to the killer will be a deterrent for future would-be shooters. Break the fame cycle and you break the back of the mass killer’s repertoire. The time to prevent the next mass murder is now – while the current mass murder story is fresh in our minds.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

May 4, 2015

A Terrible Tragedy, A Moving Hymn

Next Post

June 27, 2015 How to Respond to the Court’s Same-Sex Marriage Ruling

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month March 2018 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 May 2017 March 2017 November 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

In what city was Jesus born?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Nazareth Bethlehem Rome Jerusalem