Mass Murder ending in suicide
Regarding the school house murder of Amish girls, Hugh Hewitt did the usual thoughtful job today, asking the right questions of the right people and probing for answers instead of talking points.
Dr. Helen Smith confirmed much of what I’d learned from Prof. James Clarke in the late 1990s. The murders are an attention-getting addition to a suicide. The individual is narcissistic and blaming others for perceived wrongs/ failures. The murders provide a way for the individual to “show them” — to effectively say “look what you made me do.”
Prof. Clarke did work on the differing profiles/ motivations of political assassins. He has observed that the addition of a media pool camera to cover the president every minute he is in public, on the off change they might catch an attack on the president, may increase the incentives for individuals with the same mental state as mass-murderers to make an attempt on the president.
By extension, I think we might argue that the 24/7 saturation coverage and omnicasting, with a “what went wrong” slant, facilitates the homicidal suicide. Perhaps, and purely the musing of a layman, the answer is the same answer as we ought to be giving to islamo-fascists. No more understanding coverage. No more “neutrality.” Call evil evil and call losers losers. Heap scorn on them and give no quarter and no sympathic hearing/viewing to apologists, fellow travelors and useful idiots. Turn the information campaign back against the sociopath and on the islamo-fascist. While this will not end mass-murder or the long war, it might at least turn one feedback loop from positive to negative for the bad guys.
Just a thought.