BAD, SAD, MAD . . . AND EVIL

The Psychopathology of Spree Killers

It is a year and some months subsequent to the vile murder of nineteen children and two adults in Uvalde, Texas. There have been a number of other mass murders since—as I write these sentences, most recently several spree murders with knives in different areas of Europe. This essay is adapted from a training I prepared a number of years ago for first responders regarding what we know about those who enact these atrocities. It is based on research (the references are at the end), but also both on my clinical and personal experience. I hope that it will contribute to people's thinking about the people who, embracing evil and hatred, enact these terrible events.

Active Shooter = One Type Of Mass Murderer

Because the terms ‘active shooter’ is in such common parlance, and is, in fact, used in several of the studies I rely on for this paper, I need put it in its proper place within the larger rubric of mass murderer or spree killer. An active shooter is, according the the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), “an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area.” In its definition, DHS notes that, “in most cases, active shooters use firearms(s) and there is no pattern or method to their selection of victims.” The New York City Police Department (NYPD) has further limited this definition to include only those cases that spill beyond an intended victim to others. Thus, per this definition, we would definitely include the assassin who attempted to kill former president Donald Trump—of course, most active shooters are not assassins. It should be noted that someone who runs amok within a crowd slashing and stabbing, or deliberately drives into a crowd of people is essentially the same type of individual, even though they are not a ‘shooter.’ although it is fair to speculate that those willing to bathe in other people’s blood are different in some respects from the individual who shoots at close range and even more so, the assassin firing from a distance. I am not aware of any research, however, suggesting any significant psychological differences in those who kill in a spree using one weapon or another. Also, although most mass murderers do function in a crowded or enclosed space, as far as I can tell, the spree killer who ranges from one locale to another (for example, from home to home), is much the same. In sum, active shooters are spree killers/mass murderers who use particular tactics against particular targets. Therefore, from this point on, I will use the terms mass murderer or spree killer.

Are Mass Murderers Mentally Ill

Whenever there is a mass murder, both media and experts cite the issue of mental illness, to the degree that this assumes almost talismanic power. A ‘moral panic’ ensues—a type of mental disorder in itself—in which many assert that with proper mental health treatment, such atrocities would no longer occur. It is further claimed that since treatment options are so scarce, we will see more and more of these events.

Which begs a number of questions:

1. Mass murderers are a minute portion of the population

2. The vast majority of mentally ill individuals are not violent whatsoever, much less mass killers.

3. Furthermore, there is overwhelming evidence that many mass murderers do not suffer from mental illness whatsoever, unless we stretch the term to cover every character disorder, eccentricity, oddity, even unpleasant styles of interaction with others—or even worse, we adopt the lazy assumption that any person who wants to kill a number of others must be ill.

4. Even among that subset of mass murderers who do suffer from a major mental illness, these are often individuals who refuse mental health treatment, which they almost always have a legal right to do. Beyond that, many such individuals do not even have insight that they are ill – for many individuals suffering from psychosis, this seems to be neurologically based. In other words, their own brain informs them that they are well when they are profoundly ill. How do you ‘treat’ someone who refuses treatment?

5. Motives cross diagnoses: by this, I mean that one can have the same driving motivation to kill others: obsessions, lust, explosive ‘red rage,’ while suffering from a variety of mental illnesses, or no mental illness whatsoever.

6. Beyond this, we do not have reliable, evidence-based methods of treatment that could assure society that an individual's drive to murder will be reduced or eliminated, whether they suffer from mental illness or not. [I have worked with violent adults who have been in almost continuous mental health treatment since the age of three years old.] There is no doubt that in certain cases, mental health treatment has helped profoundly violent individuals become less so, but we cannot generalize from this. Unlike diabetes, where we have reliable treatments such as insulin, or even equivocal treatments like chemotherapy for malignant tumors, we do not have the same when it comes to human violence.

Nonetheless, in order to understand those who do enact mass murder, inquiries should focus on individuals’ behavior and communications to determine if they are a threat, and to attempt to craft interventions based on their specific character traits and motivations. The fundamental question is if any common denominators can be found among spree/mass murderers, whatever their mental health diagnosis might be?

Let us consider the kind of information we usually receive regarding mass murderers. We find that ADULT mass murderers almost always have some previous history of argumentative behavior; some have actually made explicit threats, including brandishing a fist, posturing, brandishing a weapon; others have offered either low-level assault or actual violence. With others, their actions are perceived by others as threatening. In other words, mass murderers generally have a previous history of aggression, of one kind or another. We could trivialize this insight, but let us consider it a little longer. It tells us that in almost all cases, mass murderers ‘leak.’ Although the behaviors described above are so common that they are not predictive, it does underscore that mass murderers are rarely, if ever, ordinary peaceful beings who ‘snap.’ Just as one can successfully intervene with suicidal individuals who, either purposefully or inadvertently, let others know of their intentions, the same is true—sometimes—with those intent on mass murder.

From the US Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center

Juvenile Suspects

The United States Secret Service states that incidents enacted by juveniles are rarely impulsive. In most incidents the attacker developed the idea at least 2 weeks in advance.

1. In 75% of the incidents, the attacker planned the attack.

2. Over 50% had revenge as a motive. It should be noted that the claim of revenge is not evidence that any wrong was done to the perpetrator. Revenge is acting upon a claimed grievance; it does not necessarily mean that there is any justification whatsoever for that motivation. Consider how many perpetrators of domestic violence say to their victim: “You made me do this.” In essence, grievances legitimize the desire to do violence; they are not an explanation of why the person became violent. Beyond this, some people, children included, crave grievances. They stabilize their consciousness through a sense of grievance—it makes them feel alive and focused, in a world that is, for them, either chaotic or horrible [e.g., paranoia is far better than depression or a meaningless life, and hatred is far more enlivening than a dull sense of being invisible or useless].

3. Over 66% of the attackers claimed to feel ‘persecuted’ or ‘bullied.’ It should be noted that these two experiences are not the same; a sense of persecution can be self-created and self-perpetuated. In addition, millions of people have experienced bullying—I witnessed a mild replay of this at my fiftieth high school reunion: one man saying something to another that obviously made him feel tongue-tied and stupid, in exactly the same way it did in grade school. Nonetheless, an almost infinitesimally small number of people who have experienced bullying are moved to murder, much less mass murder. Some people are terribly harassed, either online or in-person. Notwithstanding the sometimes life-long after-effects of this, in almost none of these cases are these bullied people killing anyone. That mass-murderers may claim to be persecuted or bullied—or others claim that they were—is certainly part their life story. It is not, however, a justification of violence, or even a true explanation why they are violent. However, we seem to crave bullying to explain away the horrible. Just recently, an assassin murdered Corey Comperatore and shot three others, in his assassination attempt on former President Trump. I have seen a number of online posts accompanied by a brief film clip from high school of someone being irritating to the future assassin, tugging on his pant leg. The online commentators refer to this as ‘bullying.’ In other words, if someone yanks on your clothes, you may end up shooting a president, shooting and murdering others in the process.

4. Most attackers engaged in behavior that brought attention to themselves. In 75% of the incidents, an adult (teacher, administrator, etc.) had expressed concern about the attacker. The majority of juvenile attackers communicated their grievances—their pretext/explanation—to others prior to the attack. What this means is that the perpetrator’s intention, at least their attitude (which, as will be discussed, can include hatred, malignant contempt, grandiosity, violence), ‘leaked.’

5. Prior to the incident in 75% of the cases, the attackers told someone about their interest in mounting an attack. In more than 50%, they told more than one person about the ideas or plans. In only 2 cases did peers notify an adult of the threat. This is troubling. There is such alienation between youth and adults in our society that adults are not consulted by youth as sources of wisdom or guidance. We should understand that one can have multiple motivations for disclosure: among them are grandiose display, attainment of status among peers, an attempt to warn someone—a friend, someone not categorized as a persecutor or object of hatred—not to attend school that day, but also a (sometimes unconscious) attempt to get a normative response (horror, outrage, guidance) as one is going off the rails. [NOTE: John Douglas, Ann W. Burgess, & Robert K. Ressler, noted that none of the serial killers they interviewed ever expressed shame about their actions. However, many did express shame about their childhood fantasies before they began to act. The writers speculated that this might have been a realization that if they had voiced those fantasies to someone who could have provided guidance, they might not have divorced themselves from humankind after all.¹

6. In nearly 66% of the incidents involving juvenile mass murderers, the guns came from their home or that of a relative. If you want to limit spree killer incidents with juveniles, gun safety is probably more important than mental health treatment. Please note that I am not minimizing the need for mental health treatment, assessment and social services for children; I am simply stating that, if gun owners are responsible and actively interdict their juvenile family members from access to their own firearms, many kids will be found out as they struggle to find another option. [NOTE: Surprisingly, most attackers did not appear to have a ‘fascination’ with guns—it seems to be, for them, a tool rather than a fetish.]

7. Seventy-five percent of juvenile attackers either threatened to kill themselves, made suicidal gestures, or attempted suicide. Suicide is an apocalyptic destruction of the world as embodied within one’s own physical body. Mass murder is an apocalyptic destruction of others’ worlds as well. A sense of resentment or grievance can lead one to think: “Why should I suffer alone?” Making others suffer gives one a sense of almost godlike power.

College Campus

In a survey of attacks on college campus’, we find:

• 99% perpetrated by one individual

• 94% male

• Age range of 16 – 62, with average of 28

• 60% current or former students & 20% had indirect contact through a relationship with a current//former student or employee. Only 9% had no known relationship with college or its members. [Note how rare it is for someone to randomly pick a college campus as a place to enact a spree mass murder].

• 26% died of self-inflicted injury during or within hours or days subsequent + 4% surviving self-inflicted injuries

• 4% killed by LEO (It is striking how rare successful neutralization of the threat by law enforcement is in campus shootings—quite different statistics, as the reader will see below, in other mass shootings.)

• In spree killings on college campuses, 54% used firearms, blades were used in 21%, 10% used a combination of methods (strangling/stabbing most common), and 15% are not accounted for in this study.

Motives [NOTE: In some of these, I've added questions or comments in parenthesis and italics, where more information is needed, or something needs to be highlighted because it is contrary to ‘common knowledge’].

• 36% intimate relationship ("Intimate relationship” is too general a term. Was it truly an intimate partnership, a casual relationship, a single date or just a hook-up? Were some of these circumstances one where the perpetrator alone viewed himself as being in a relationship with someone he targeted?

• Motives were unknown in 17% of the cases.

• In 14%, retaliation for something was claimed as the precipitant or motive (In other words, they claimed revenge—remember, this claim does not mean that any of the victims did anything wrong, or even if a transgression can be delineated, that it was so heinous that mass murder could be justified in any way.)

• 10% precipitated by having their “romantic” (that was the word used in the study) advances refused or rejected (Is this due to obsession/stalking or a sense of pride—salient data as the psychological mindset of obsession and pride murders can be very different.)

• 10% academic stress or failure (Is this an explosive release of stress or blame of others for one’s problems?)

• 10% acquaintance/stranger-based sexual violence (This is a startlingly high number for sexual assault mutating into mass killing on college campuses. Certainly mass rape and killing occurs in war zones or raids such as that by the Gazan terrorists on October 7th, 2023, but this statistic seems to discuss a single individual perpetuating a rape following it by killing several people or more, such as the infamous Richard Speck case of 1966. )

• In 8% of the cases, the murderer was diagnosed as psychotic (Note how few were associated with this mental disorder given that, in popular discourse, this is assumed to be the prime driver of mass murder.)

• 6% workplace dismissal or sanction (Note how few, comparatively, in college settings - this is decidedly different from workplace violence in other venue)

• 3% “need to kill” (The cliché of the ‘psychopath,’ so common in movies, is here at least, extremely rare.)

• 3% to draw attention to self (This 2nd cliché also seems to be uncommon, at least in the college setting.)

• 2% bias related (Were we to trust public discourse, one would expect this to be among the most common motives, as the United States is claimed to be, by some, a pervasively racist, sexist, homophobic, etc., etc., etc., place. Given this nearly pervasive grievance in public discourse, it is remarkable how rare this is given as a pretext for violence—and even here, we must ask if this is simply used by the perpetrator for his justification rather than actual experience.)

I wish to highlight how few mass-murder events on college campus’s are associated with the most common shibboleths a) major mental illness, b) the movie-hero ‘natural born killer’ c) The need to be famous d) Due to prejudice and bias.

Warning Signs in campus mass murders:

1. In 29% of cases, there was pre-incident harassment, letters, stalking or physically aggressive acts

2. In 31% of the time, the perpetrator displayed concerning behaviors that were observed by friends, family or law enforcement

3. NOTE: The pre-assault indicators in this study regarding college mass-murders are both sparse and the numbers are low. This certainly needs to be revisited—the vast majority of youth today live publicly on line. There is almost surely a lot more ‘leakage’ in the electronic environment than there is in the material world.

NYPD Active Shooter Report

• 96% male (Once again, it is established that mass murder is almost completely a male behavior)

• The most common age ranges are 15-19 years old & 35-44 years old (This is an interesting gap. My speculation is that the youthful killers are ‘unformed,’ not-yet adults, who are miserable, furious, and in the throes of neurological and hormonal development. Those with a murderous mindset who, somehow, mature without killing anyone, then enter life, with the possibility of a new home, relationships, friends and job. It could be that by the mid-thirties, when those hopes are dashed and they are approaching middle-age, that this is when a sense of renewed failure sets in. )

• 98% single attacker

• In the majority of mass murderers, there has been a connection with at least one of the victims or the institution: Professional 41%, Academic 23%; Familial 5%,and other 9%. In only 22% is there no connection to the perpetrator and the victims.

• Regarding the professional connection, only 1/3 due to terminated employees whereas ⅔ are due to current conflict or other upset on job-site. This is an extremely important bit of data—having worked with various security professionals in major corporations, most role-play for potential active shooter events concern worksite termination. Statistically, at least, more attention needs to be paid to worksite altercations, human resource issues and the like.

• 36% used more than one weapon

How Mass Killings Ended

1. 46% end with applied force. Police have much more success in general spree shootings than school or campus shootings. This demands more fine-grained research in itself. What is it about general mass killings that puts the perpetrator in police sights, where it is so much more rare in academic settings?

2. 40% ended by suicide or attempted suicide. (Much of that suicide was away from the shooting location—as if there is an emotional ‘crash’ after the event is over)

3. 14% ended with no applied force – e.g., surrender

4. <1% fled. In only a fraction of the cases did the killer actually act like a classical criminal, who tries to escape after committing a crime. What this suggests is that there is an element of suicide or at least of 'throwing one's life away' in the vast majority of these incidents.

Through the Lens of Research

I carried out a phenomenological review of two hundred eighty cases enumerated in the NYPD Report on Active Shooters, looking for salient character traits that seem to be common among various of these killers. Within that 280 cases, we see, over and over again, the following traits:

Depression

Depression seems to be a hallmark quality described over and over in profiles of mass murderers, yet what do we mean by ‘depression?’ The problem is that when we read the word, we think of sadness, helplessness and ineffectual struggles with life’s problems. That certainly sounds miserable, but why would that be dangerous? Despite the almost innumerable sub-divisions of depression in our modern diagnostic manual, depression is really a complex of traits in various proportions: ‘helplessness & hopelessness,’ anxiety (a feeling of impeding doom, where what is imagined is experienced as if it is happening), physical complaints (one feels miserable, ‘un-homed’ within one’s body) and a bitterness (“Why is this happening to me!??? It’s not fair! Why me, not you?"). All of this leads to a feeling that one is worthless and that life is not fair. Violence, however, enables one to be, for a moment, a god of destruction. You actions have an impact. Violence makes one feel worthwhile. [NOTE: I once intervened—successfully—in a situation where a miserable, bitter failed artist with no criminal history had actually taken steps to burn down the house of his therapist, along with his family, because “It’s not fair that you get such a nice life and I don’t. I’d like to see the look on your face after your wife and daughters are burned to death.”]

Obsessive stalking

Obsessions are fixed intrusive thoughts that one cannot stop. A compulsion, which so often accompanies an obsession, is an internal drive to act on the basis of one’s obsession. For example, you know you have washed your hands, but your mind tells you that you might have touched a doorknob previously touched by someone with leprosy, and you feel like you must go back to wash your hands, but as you walk away from the sink, you worry that you missed a spot, and you feel a compulsion to return again. If you resist washing your hands, your anxiety will exponentially increase. [NOTE: I once worked with a man with some level of obsessive-compulsive traits who got a summons to court for an unpaid traffic and his mind, acting as his own worst enemy, cast up fears that he would be arrested, thrown in jail, and either maimed or murdered by other inmates while there. His anxiety rose to such a level that he had to spend several days in a hospital.]

The obsessive stalker fixates on a human being. He or she is aware that the other person is not interested in them, but their obsession drives them—they MUST connect, they must relate, they must possess. When the object of their attention refuses, the obsessive stalker experiences anguish. The anguish is ‘caused’ by the other person, and this, all too often, results in rage.

1. You, the object of my affection, are hurting me. You merit my revenge.

2. If the only way I can possess you is by TAKING your life, then that is the best option.

3. Those associated with you must also suffer. Either they have something from you that I cannot possess, or part of my revenge upon you will be to make you responsible for the harm or death of those close to you.

4. If I do something apocalyptic, you will be the one to blame. My action will be your fault.

PARANOIA - Grievance & Resentment Manifesting In Both Relationships & On The Worksite

Paranoia, itself, is not a delusional state, it is an attitude. The attitude is: “Not only is ‘it’ not my fault, it’s your fault for saying it’s my fault.” From the statistics gathered by the NYPD, it appears, as stated above, that worksite grievances are the most common driver of mass murderers—not only terminations, but frustrations and resentments. Similarly, in academia, many killers who are academically struggling, are NOT responding out of desperate depression—they manifest a burning resentment that they are not getting what they deserve. The paranoid person is a grievance collector—they actually feel more secure when they have something to hate. Their target gives focus and organization to their life. If they ever lose a resentment, they experience the world as being in a state of chaos until they figure out something else to blame and hate (Two significant examples of this, both murderous against police, were Christopher Monford and Christopher Jordan Dorner.

1. The person experiencing paranoia goes through the world with already established beliefs. They are like a detective searching for clues, for evidence to confirm their beliefs.  Their stance towards the world is primarily suspicious. The paranoid style is a lonely one, because to trust another is to risk betrayal.

2. They have a sense of vulnerability that is covered in defenses, much like a porcupine projecting quills over a soft underbelly.

3. Their life is one in which they are always experiencing a sense of having their integrity violated. Interaction with others, when they are not in complete control, is experienced almost as a psychic rape. The other person, in ‘making’ them feel, therefore has taken non-consensual control of them.

4. They are highly resentful of authority or coercion. Paranoid individuals are often quite concerned about hierarchy and power relationships. They often provoke opposition, because waiting to be betrayed or oppressed, something they are convinced is going to happen, is intolerable. Therefore, they will push the other person until their true colors are revealed. This frequently shows up both on the worksite and in relationships.

5. If they sense fear in another, they expect that the other will deal with their fear as the paranoid would: by attack. So when they perceive fear in others, they ‘counterattack first.’

6. Paranoia can be ‘innate,’ due to psychological issues, or it can be evoked by drug abuse, particularly methamphetamine and other stimulants. Particularly when drugs are involved, the paranoid state often becomes worse and worse, with the person further deteriorating into delusional and psychotic states.

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A Grievance Sidebar - Using ‘isms’ as vehicle for ecstasy 

Some people use a genuine or concocted story of bias or victimization as a means of control. That works particularly well in our society, where, for the first time in human history, victimization or claims thereof, are the means of power over others. When one is simultaneously being blamed as being an oppressor and at the same time, is intimidated by the alleged oppressed group/individual, the latter achieves power. Such power is intoxicating to the intimidator, because it is fueled by resentment and hate. I will address the ecstatic release of violence later, but resentment provides an excuse for apocalyptic violence just as many rapists blame women for depriving them of what they deserve. The spree-killer is often a ‘special victim.’

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Ideology

Ideology is a driver of political violence and terror. However, that does not mean that all perpetrators of political violence can be considered to be mere soldiers. Individuals with a variety of psychopathologies will be drawn to terroristic movements, in order to find an opportunity . . . . a ‘playground,’ so to speak. What I mean by this is that their generalized hatred and desire for destruction is given license by an acquired ideology. In other words, the killer who talks about “saving the white race” is essentially identical to the murderer who writes about "ecological collapse" or one who proclaims he is acting against a "racist society." Ideology, for the mass murderer, is often a vehicle to contain, drive and amplify general hatred.

Neuro-atypical (WITH paranoia): Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook

Although young people with neuro-atypical organization(s) can present some level of behavioral problems in schools (either because of stress, over-stimulus, obsessions), they do NOT have a high rate of violence. I did not note in the NYPD cases, mass murderers who only manifested as neuro-atypical. It is probable that the killers at Virginia Tech and at Sandy Hook both were high-functioning autistic people, and in the latter case in particular, this ignited a brief moral panic among the general public. What is important is that these two killers also seemed to show paranoia, that hair-trigger, hyper-sensitive blame of others. When you couple paranoia with the obsessive traits that so many folks with autism can display, you can have a dangerous person. To underscore, however, this is a very rare phenomena among those on the autism spectrum.

Explosive/Borderline States

Imagine a man walking along a resort beachfront. He’s had an argument with his girlfriend, whom, he believes has been flirting with several guys in the hotel bar. Then the strap of his flip-flop breaks and he’s hobbling down the street and it’s hot, so hot that the asphalt is melting and sticks to his bare feet. He yelps and jumps and hobbles, and some passing girls start laughing at him, and there are some people he knows from the neighborhood, but they are in another clique and they start laughing at him as well. He explodes and starts yelling at them and they ask him what he’s going to do, there are four of them, and he gets in one man’s face who contemptuously shoves him away, and that’s IT! He pulls a gun and starts shooting. Such an individual is in an emotional mindset where his emotions are his only reality. In this case, he is blinded to future consequences or to morality by rage.

If such a reactivity is not the result of unique, extreme circumstances, as in the example above, and is, instead, part of one’s day-to-day experience, this is referred to as the ‘borderline’ style. People with borderline personality disorder (BPD) consistently orient themselves in the world through what they immediately feel. They do not ‘have’ emotions—emotions have them. In borderline states, the sense of self is very fragile. What this means is that very little stress threatens their self-image that keeps them functioning as a pro-social being.Many individuals with this style are primarily self-destructive. But road-rage is also a borderline state, as is the cyclical battering of the classic relational abuser.

 Because feelings are so important, this means that some will romanticize a relationship as fulfilling them and making them complete. They are possessed as they possess. They must dominate so the other won’t escape. [Let us return to the fact that 36% of college mass murderer incidents are associated with ‘intimate’ relationships]. Such individuals have a fear of abandonment, yet a belief that closeness means destruction (because it is due to the other that the person with the borderline style is overwhelmed with feelings). Love, therefore, brings rage, very similar to what happens if you leave a toddler alone.

• The borderline state can be one in which the individual murders in a ‘red haze’ – for example, one is thrown out of a bar or a party, goes to one’s car and grabs a gun, returns and shoots the place up, or pours gasoline down the steps and tries to burn the building down.

• Spree shootings associated with broken relationships, domestic violence, jealousy, brooding about infidelity, etc. are often associated with borderline states.

• Borderline states are often associated with suicide—and sometimes in murder-suicides.

Psychosis

The vast majority of individuals experiencing psychotic states are not dangerous, much less inclined to mass murder. However, as with neuro-atypical people, the addition of paranoia does seem to be a hallmark trait of violent individuals who do have psychotic symptoms. Also, individuals experiencing psychotic symptoms who also use intoxicants (psychoactive drugs, including alcohol) are exponentially more likely to be violent.

Desperation

There are examples of school shootings and other acts of violence where the perpetrator was also a victim: bullied, tormented and ostracized. Consider this. Ostracism used to be capital punishment in pre-civilized societies. If you were ostracized, you were dead: cut off from community, nurturance, safety—all that allowed you to live and feel a part of something. When kids, in particular, are ostracized, they are in agony. Whether it is cold indifference or vicious tormenting, if the child believes that they cannot ever escape, violence helps them break free of other’s control, get revenge, make themselves seen (in spite of their tormenters’ intentions), and simply, for a moment, make it stop.

However, as I discussed above, we all too readily embrace the myth of the bullied child who kills because it is less frightening than the idea of evil—that the murderous little-more-than-a-child desires to do harm for the ecstasy, the satisfaction of hatred, that violence offers.²

Destruction of Other’s Well-being is the Best Feeling There Is – The Psychopath (Sociopath)

These are individuals who truly do not experience guilt or remorse. They can be empathetic (can ‘read’ other people) but have no sympathy. In other words, they can track but not really internally understand what other people experience. When this is coupled with sadism (the enjoyment of tormenting or having power over others), you see the sociopathic mass murderer. As was noted above, however, a surprisingly small cadre of mass murderers would fall under the rubric of a sociopathic individual.

The Core Overlapping Traits Of All Spree Killers

What follows are, as far as I can tell, the core traits that are common to most, if not all, mass murderers.

• The attainment of God-like powers: He (or she – rarely) holds the power of life and death. The mass murderer can destroy futures, can shock a community, a nation. He has become God, or better put, has usurped God’s role. The term ‘Satanic’ is not out of place. Lest there be any confusion, I am not espousing a religious doctrine here. I am attempting to capture, through an image, the intent of a one who willfully destroys lives, who slaughters. A ‘divine deity’ and a ‘satanic deity’ have the same powers—the difference, however, is that the former, in just about every culture, is typified by, among other qualities, an attitude of caring and protectiveness, of love towards those over which the deity has power. The ‘satanic deity’ is typified by malignant contempt and hatred, just as genocidal people dehumanize—refer to their victims by such terms as vermin, cockroaches, rats, or various obscenities and curses. What many naive people do not understand is how powerful hatred makes one feel: it gives you focus, intent, and a life full of meaning.

• Ecstasy: Such an individual, in the midst of slaughter, is in a state of ecstasy—the equivalent of mystic transport, orgasm unbounded, each gesture, each twitch of a muscle ending a life, destroying dreams and families, shattering all the constraints of humanity. Those in ecstasy often ‘crash’ after the explosion of violence, becoming passive, surrender, even suicidal.

• Sadism: the conscious infliction of suffering on others, for one’s own pleasure or reward. One can clearly see the relationship to the previous two items. When one tortures or otherwise causes pain (bereaving families, for example), one has absolutely possessed the victims. There is a perverse joy in transgression, be it the violation of morality or the physical and spiritual integrity of another human being.

• Samson in the temple suicide/honor guard to Valhalla – One subset of mass killers fixate upon on honor, on ‘name,’ on becoming famous, glorious. These days, many have an ‘encysted audience’ within a chatroom or other social media platform that provides an echo-chamber to encourage their actions. This is a possible outlier, in the sense that many mass murderers are not 'performing for an audience.' However, the other three traits named seem to be always present.

All of the above traits are shown clearly in an archived account from a 5/20/2018 article on the Zerohedge website. The title was: "‘Smart, Quiet, Sweet’ Texas School Killer Killed Female Student Who Rejected Him, Taunted Victims"

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After scrambling to escape the shooter's blasts in the art room, Isabelle Van Ness, covered in dust from rounds hitting her classroom walls, could hear the killer in a next-door classroom yelling, "Woo hoo!" while shooting, according to her mother, Deedra Van Ness. The gunman then comes back into their room and they hear him saying … “Are you dead?” Then more shots are fired, Deedra Van Ness wrote. By this time, cell phones all over the classroom are ringing and he's taunting the kids in the closet asking them … “do you think it's for you? do you want to come answer it?” Then he proceeds to fire more bullets into the closet and tries to get in.

References

• IHE attacks: “Campus Attacks: Targeted Violence Affecting Institutes of Higher Learning” – Quick Reference Guide and Summary of Findings

• NYPD Spree Killer Report

• Rapid Deployment Instructor Course - Module 3: Review of Spree Pre-Incident

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1. Douglas, John E., Ann W. Burgess & Robert Ressler, Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives, Free Press; Reprint edition (June 1, 1995)

2. If it all comes down to bullying, we think that all we have to do is stop bullying and such violence will disappear. (even though our current anti-bullying programs have little to no effect on the problem of bullying in schools). Effective policies should do far more concerning the fostering resilience in those victimized and fostering empathy and sympathy in all children in a classroom. The best anti-bullying program that I am aware of is called Roots of Empathy and involves bringing babies to the classroom.