Countless officials have once again labeled a murderous rampage “senseless violence.” This time the massacres took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, USA, on 14 December 2012. Twenty children, ages 6 and 7, and 8 adults died. A parent asked, “Who would do this to our poor little babies?” That’s a good question. Answering it will lead to prevention of violence.
Who indeed. The gunman, whom police have not identified, is a man who did to these children and adults what he believed had been done to him. It’s that simple. He was getting back at others in the most terrible way imaginable. One of the persons he murdered was his own mother. I have interviewed more than 150 people who have committed violent acts including serial killers. Through talking to them, I have seen similar patterns repeatedly.
The Logic of Mass Murderers
The acts of school shooters are logical to them. The following is probably what happened. The young man who committed the murders at Sandy Hook Elementary snapped. Something set him off. It could have been anything. His mother might have scolded him. A girlfriend or a boyfriend dumped him. He got fired from his job. He failed a test. Someone looked at him funny. Anything could have set him off.
When he snapped, he was flooded with thoughts, emotions, and images that were so powerful they overwhelmed his common sense and decency. He may have felt shamed and disrespected. Fears that he is worthless could have arisen. When he felt like this, he wanted to do something to make himself feel better. He reverted to blueprints for action etched in his brain, laid down over the years. He may have thought about murdering others many other times, sometimes for long periods of time. Last Friday, he acted. He did what his blueprint for action guided him to do. He killed others and the he killed himself, or it least he may have killed himself. Police have not told the press how the man died.
The thought never occurred to him to find someone to talk to about his latest shame, rage, and feelings of worthlessness. Never in his life had he worked through his rage through talking things out. Doing something constructive with his hurt and rage was not etched in his brain. Not for him was to deal straight on with what was bothering him. Talking about hurtful things are for sissies, fags, fems, punks. Not for him relaxation techniques like yoga, meditation, and tai chi. Those things are lame. Instead, he followed his version of the Golden Rule: Do Unto Others What I Believe Others Have Done to Me.
He may have been a quiet young man, whom many people liked and respected. Others also could have though he was a bit strange at times, moody maybe, but probably not dangerous. Mass murderers have more than one public face.
Sure, he was quiet. He never told anyone what was on his mind. He probably had many hard times. Maybe he experienced a series of losses through death or desertions. He probably was preoccupied with violence, perhaps spending hours at a time playing violent video games and getting a big charge out of violent songs and other media. He may have felt alienated from prosocial peers who did well in school, who talked to others about his problems, and who did nice things for others.
The gunman never worked out what those hard times meant to him. Instead, he believed that he was no good, inadequate, and a failure. He was filled with rage. He told no one. He soothed himself through engaging in violent thoughts and imagining violent actions. He programmed himself to become a mass murderer.
No one helped him understand that real men talk about their feelings and share their rage with others in constructive ways. Real men deal forthrightly with whatever is on their mind. This young man probably lived in circumstances where this kind of masculinity was unknown.
In His Own World
Since he did not share his inner experiences and emotions with others, there was no one to help him to consider alternatives to shooting children and adults at an elementary school. He was in his own world, with the same kind of self-centered tunnel vision that other mass murderers live in. He was caught up in his own idea of what the world is like and what he had to do to set things right. Mass murders are about setting things right. Mass murderers are poor problem solvers. They do not consider alternative to their violent actions, and they are short-sighted about the consequences of their actions.
They often feel chills, thrills, and gratification when thinking about murdering others in a public, dramatic way, but they do not think about the long-term consequences for the people they harm, their families, and their own families. They are centered on themselves and what they want.
Three Ideas Related to Violence Prevention
This young man was a walking and talking bag of misery who cheered himself up by thinking about murdering children in an elementary school. Happy people are not mass murderers. This young man was miserable and murderous because he did not have good relationships with others and did not manage his emotions well. Any beliefs that about promoting own well-being and the well-being of others collapsed when he got to thinking about committing violence and cheering himself up with thoughts of destruction. In the next section, I will talk about what makes people happy. The young man who murdered 20 school children and seven adults was not happy.
Building Relationships
Human beings throughout history have recognized the importance of relationships and have acted that way much of the time. Through relationships with others we build families and communities. Happy people enjoy intimacy and closeness. We value cooperation. We negotiate for want. When we are unhappy we turn to others for comfort and to develop strategies for dealing constructively with whatever is at the root of our unhappiness.
When happy people have good relationships with others, we feel good. We treat others well. We are creative and relaxed. When something goes wrong in important relationships, we are sad, stressed, and angry. Happy people seek to repair breaks in relationships. Research has shown consistently that the chief quality in good relationships is not the absence of conflict but capacities to repair breakdowns in relationships.
Managing Emotions
Happy people manage their emotions well. Managing emotions means that we have capacities to regulate our emotions. Much of the time, our emotions are on an even keel. No matter how stable we think our emotions are, there are times when we become frustrated, angry, or sad, among other emotions. What we do when we feel these strong emotions leads to happiness or unhappiness. Happy people know how to manage or regulate their emotions. They allow themselves to feel these emotions. They talk to other people about their emotions. They are willing to deal with their emotions constructively. They do not express their emotions destructively. They may have fleeting thoughts of punching someone and being otherwise destructive, but they do not act on these thoughts.
Happy people self-regulate, by doing talking to others, vigorous exercise, meditate, dance, go for a run or walk, swim, engage in an enjoyable activity, or anything else that soothes difficult emotions. Happy people do not take their emotions out on others. They do not do things that hurt themselves. They know what they feel. They can name their emotions. They admit what they feel. They deal directly and constructively with their emotions.
No one is constructive 100% of the time. When generally happy people do things that hurt themselves and others, these actions usually are not deeply harmful and the effects are repairable. Having too much to drink can be harmful, but easily correctable. Eating too much to self-soothe can be harmful, but correctable. Being irritable hurts others but is repairable. Happy people recognize quickly when they are out of line. Sometimes others have to tell them. When others do this, they realize that they are out of line. They take corrective actions. They seek to repair harms.
Sometimes frustrations lead to problem-solving. Parents and teachers who simply don’t know what to do about a family or classroom issue do problem-solving. They seek out a variety of people to get a variety of points of view. They may take special training. They consider alternatives and then make decisions about how to respond. When they do respond they observe what happens. If things turn out well, they continue to perform those actions. If they find some things don’t work and some do, they seek constructive ways to deal with issues where their actions weren’t helpful.
People who commit violent acts do not seek a variety of points of view. They do not share their own thinking with a variety of others in order to come up with the best possible solutions for their dilemmas.
Beliefs
Happy people have balanced ideas of who they are, what they are entitled to, and what they can do to get what they want. Their beliefs lead them to promote their own well-being and the well-being of others. Happy people negotiate for what they want. They balance what they want with what other people want. They actively seek to understand what other people want. They adjust their own wants to what others want.
Having accurate ideas of who they are means that they don’t think they are entitled to what they want regardless of what others want. They also don’t think of themselves as worthless. They also don’t swing between entitlement and worthlessness.
Happy people believe they have a right to be respected, to make their own decisions, and have dignity and worth. When they feel disrespected, controlled, or demeaned, they speak up assertively. They are not aggressive about it.
Happy people believe that others have a right to be respected, to make their own decision, and have dignity and worth. They do nothing to infringe on the rights of others. If they are parents, teachers, bosses, or others who have power over others, they recognize the power they have and allow others to have as much power as if feasible, as much freedom of choice as possible, and as much dignity and worth as possible. They set fair rules and provide resources so that they persons over whom they have power have what they need to be able to follow the rules.
Happy people do not abuse their power or take advantage of the power they have over others. They are just and caring in their dealings with others.
Happy people do not have beliefs that lead them to refuse to consider the rights of others, including the rights of others to make their own decisions within reasonable boundaries.
Happy people want others to challenge their beliefs when beliefs lead to actions that hurt other people or themselves.
Happy people operate on the principles of fairness and caring for others.
When happy people are about to take action, they think about consequences for themselves and for others. They are honest about the consequences and don’t pretend that something that they think is good for them is also good for others who might be affected. They think about and care about the effects of their actions on others. They modify their actions when they think they might hurt others or if their actions have hurt others. They want to and work at building bridges when their actions have been harmful to others. If their actions have hurt themselves, they stop doing them. Their belief systems are the foundation of their concerns for consequences and what to do when consequences are negative.
When individual commit violent acts, any beliefs about promoting the well-being of others is not operating. At the times they think about violence and while they are doing their murdering, their belief systems are the opposite of the belief systems of happy people. Ironically, they may at times be kind, loving, considerate, fair, and altruistic. These positive belief systems, however, are not strong enough to overcome their pro-violence beliefs and actions.
Discussion
The actions of mass murderers are not senseless, as many people say each time there is a massacre. People who commit mass murders have a clear logic based on what is obvious to them: Do Unto Others What I Believe Others Have Done to Me. Violent acts solve many problems for mass murderers. They feel good and whole and get gratification from thinking about committing violence and while are doing violent things.
Prevention of murderous rampages requires policies, programs, and individual actions that are based upon the logic of murderous rampages. My research suggests that people who commit violent acts have poor relationships with others, do not regulate their emotions well, and they have beliefs that lead them to hurt others and themselves.
Logically, then, the prevention of violence involves the promotion healthy relationships, good self-regulation, and prosocial beliefs. People with these qualities are happy. Happy people do not commit mass murders.
References
Gilgun, Jane F. (2012). Child sexual abuse: From harsh realities to hope (3rd ed.). Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/...
Gilgun, Jane F. (2012). On being happy: Three ideas. http://www.scribd.com/...
Gilgun, Jane F. (2012). Social work and social marketing: An example using the promotion of well being as a strategy to reduce violence.
http://www.scribd.com/...
Gilgun, Jane F. (2012). The logic of murderous rampages. http://www.scribd.com/...
Gilgun, Jane F. (2012). The logic of murderous rampages and other essays on violence. http://www.amazon.com/...
About the Author
Jane F. Gilgun, PhD, LICSW, is a professor, School of Social Work, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA. She has done interview research on the meanings of violence to perpetrators for many years. She is also interested in the development of violent behaviors and how persons overcome adversities. She Jane’s other articles, books, and children’s stories on scribd, Amazon, iBooks, Barnes & Noble, and other internet booksellers.