Citation

O'toole ME. Violence Gend. 2014; 1(1): 9-10.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Mary Ann Liebert Publishers)

DOI

10.1089/vio.2013.1502

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Mass shootings like the ones we have witnessed in recent years at Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, the Colorado movie theater, the Tasso da Silveira Municipal School in Rio de Janiero, Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Amish school, and on the small island of Utoeya, Norway, have stunned the world. These tragedies have fueled debates about issues such as gun control, mental health, violent videos, bullying behavior, and the role these issues play in how and why the crimes occur as well as how to prevent the next one. To understand the complexities of this extreme behavior and the pathology of the shooter, with the goal of preventing similar events, an in-depth analysis of these crimes from a behavioral perspective is critical. The term active shooter is used to describe an individual who is killing or attempting to kill people in a public or populated location. However, this term falls short of giving us important, detailed, in-depth behavioral descriptors and definining the differences in mass shooters in terms of their planning and preparation, organization, motive, and degree of lethality. A number of years ago, I coined the term "mission-oriented" shooter to describe a special type of mass shooter whose mission is to kill as many people as possible, or to achieve maximum lethality.

Language: en