A 22-year veteran of the White Plains, NY police force used his gun to murder his two teen-aged daughters, shoot his three family pet dogs, and then kill himself Saturday (news report here: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/...)
Glen Hochman, aged 52, had an unblemished record as a police officer in a wealthy suburb of New York City, and was recently retired. He and his daughters, aged 17 and 13, along with the three dogs, were all discovered shot dead by police in their Harrison, NY home. Police are calling the shootings a murder-suicide event, and their investigation is continuing.
Mr. Hochman's oldest daughter and his wife were out of town at home at the time of the murders. According to news reports today, the Hochman parents had recently discussed making a separation agreement.
Guns kill over 30,000 Americans every year. Gun enthusiasts and the gun industry claim that guns are safe to own and use, and help protect Americans from criminal attack: a falling crime rate is frequently cited as evidence of the beneficial effect of many Americans owning and carrying guns.
The fact is that the vast majority of people shot dead in America are not the victims of murderous inner-city criminals, but die as the result of a suicidal shooting. Every year, over 19,000 Americans intentionally use a gun to take their own lives. That the vast majority of gun deaths in America result from a suicidal act is never mentioned by the gun industry or their supporters.
So if one looks at guns as a crime-fighting tool, the gun appears to offer many benefits. If instead one looks at all shootings, not just those that occur during the commission of a crime, guns are revealed to be highly destructive and harmful.
Mr. Hochman was a licensed gun owner, and received training in how to use a gun as part of his job as police officer, and had a great deal of experience carrying a gun. Yet he used that training and experience to not only shoot himself, but his own young daughters and family pets. This kind of behavior looks crazy to us, and so we are tempted to label the shooter as "mentally ill" or "insane"; such labelling gives the gun industry and other gun enthusiasts a comfortable fig leaf to throw over the deadly business of selling and carrying guns.
But what if Mr. Hochman was not mentally ill? It is possible Mr. Hochman abused steroids: abuse of steroids is a growing problem among police; steroid medications have psychoactive properties, and illicit steroid use is known to cause rapid mood swings, intense irritability, and aggressive rages. It is possible Mr. Hochman abused alcohol: alcohol is also a psychoactive agent and has a long history of causing those who drink to excess to act irrationally and aggressively. It is possible Mr. Hochman was frightened by the prospect of the end of 20+ years of marriage and loss of the family home life.
It is also possible but highly improbably that Mr. Hoffman was able to conceal a ongoing mental disorder during his 20 years of work as a police officer.
We may never know what drove Mr. Hoffman to turn a murderous rage on his own children and family pets. We do know that owning a gun makes the killing of every living being in a house quick and easy, and in the absence of a gun, such a murder-suicide would much more difficult and in all likelihood. never even attempted.
Gun enthusiasts like to claim the gun is a crime-fighting tool. But the advertising slogans of the gun industry should be seen as exactly what they are: advertising slogans will little factual basis. It must be understand that a gun is also too-often a precipitating factor in some of the very worst criminal acts imagined.