Seriously, there are few mass shootings where the perpetrators' political views are of primary importance. Often enough no political view is even discernible. One thing we can be certain of is that the lot of them are fucking nuts. Another is that they almost exclusively male, and a third is that most of them have not reached the end of the first third of the normally expected lifespan. It may well be the case that mass shooters tend to have political views that are more or less right of centre, but dwelling on that is useless. A more constructive approach would be to realise that they are unhinged, most likely because of their upbringing. Jillian Peterson, an associate professor of criminology at Hamline University, and James Densley, a professor of criminal justice at Metro State University, studied every mass shooter in the US since 1966 who shot and killed four or more people in a public place, and every shooting incident at schools, workplaces and places of worship since 1999. In
an interview with Politico, Peterson said there is a really consistent pathway to becoming a mass shooter:
Early childhood trauma seems to be the foundation, whether violence in the home, sexual assault, parental suicides, extreme bullying. Then you see the build toward hopelessness, despair, isolation, self-loathing, oftentimes rejection from peers. That turns into a really identifiable crisis point where they’re acting differently. Sometimes they have previous suicide attempts.
What’s different from traditional suicide is that the self-hate turns against a group. They start asking themselves, “Whose fault is this?” Is it a racial group or women or a religious group, or is it my classmates? The hate turns outward. There’s also this quest for fame and notoriety.
I am amused by how quickly you brought up an alleged and ludicrous connection between the killer and antifa. You, and thousands of right wing lunatics on twitter, gab and various other social media. That's why I decided to play along.
