Fame or fantasy? Thinking about mass killers’ motivations

Yesterday I wrote a little piece, “6 thoughts on gun violence“; what follows is an attempt to unpack Thought #4.

It is by now common knowledge that mass killers, such as the Oregon killer and the Sandy Hook killer and the Virginia Tech killer and the Aurora killer, do so because they want to be famous, because in their own perverted mind being famous for killing is perhaps not as good as being famous for doing a great deed, but it’s still better than anonymity.  The most recent instance of this is a piece by Kevin Williamson in the National Review:

From what we have seen of the Umpqua shooter’s communications before the crime, and those of others like him, the entire episode was one big homicidal “Pay attention to meeeeeeeeeee!”

The article then goes on to put this killing in the larger context that most murders have nothing to do with these big dramatic instances.  Other articles make the proposal that, in order to deter future killers, the media should steadfastly refuse to provide the name or any details about the killer, because the last thing a prospective mass killer would want, is to kill without the knowledge that his name will be remembered, so if it’s uncertain whether his name will be reported, it’s probably not worth it.

I don’t buy it.

Sure, maybe it’s a part of the motivation, but I think only a part.  For the most part, I think these killers have the same motivation as do Islamic radicals who join up with ISIS.

Here’s a question:  which came first, the desire to commit suicide, or the desire to kill others?  Or are they paired together?  Either the desire to kill oneself came first, and from that came a desire to punish the wider world (not necessarily a specific target), and/or the desire to experience what it feels like to kill others; or the latter came first and was so insistent that suicide was a small price to pay to have this experience.

In the same way, it has often been remarked upon that the motivation for so many young men joining ISIS is not the desire to, as they see it, fight for their faith, however perverted an understanding of it they have; instead, the very prospect of killing, with what they believe is God’s approval, is a draw.

I would never kill anyone.

You would never kill anyone — well, outside of the conditions of being drafted into military service, or as a matter of self-defense.

But we know, from the history of the Nazis and other mass murderers, that not everyone reacts the same way to killing.  Some of those the Nazis recruited to kill civilians, either in death camps/death squads or other ways, washed out and were reassigned, others did their assignments with detachment, and yet others were positively enthusiastic about their task.  It’s my understanding that the Nazis themselves, in some cases, expressed the idea that they wanted their killers to be professional about it, rather than gleeful about the opportunity.

Now, clearly, the men who have perpetrated these recent acts of mass murder have abandoned all notion of right and wrong, and certainly of eternal punishment.

Some of these men are reported to have been obsessed with first-person-shooter video games.  Others tried to join the army but failed.  Why would their motivation not be as simple as wanting to experience the feeling of killing others, and abandoning all fear of consequences, if they are planning on dying and don’t believe in Hell?  Would it not be as simple as such a killer believing that this would be one final act that would give them immense pleasure, perhaps influenced by news reports, history, movies, video games, television, everything that builds up expecatations?

Why must a desire for celebrity, for fame, even enter into the picture?  Especially when many of these killers are identifiably mentally ill, though perhaps not to the degree that they’ve lost all understanding of right and wrong.  Why does such a person care about being famous?

And, that being said, to my mind, the biggest potential deterrent to future killings would be to succeed in taking such a killer alive, and parading him around, and making it clear that he’s got a very miserable life ahead of him that was in no way worth it.