Omni Brain

If video games aren't to blame for the shooting, maybe it was Nietzsche! Looking for something (or someone) to blame? Here's the FBI's (laughable) take on profiling school shooters.

One method for discovering potentially violent students involves having students write about their lives as a window into their thoughts. This would have helped in some of the school shootings if the teachers had had the essays and then been able to interpret their content and style. For example, one of the shooters' work was influenced heavily by the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who is best known for having proclaimed the death of God and for calling himself an 'immoralist,' one who opposes all morality. Another suspect's writing was inspired by the musician Marilyn Manson who reportedly based his song 'Antichrist Superstar' on Nietzsche's book The Antichrist... - School Violence: Lessons Learned, Harpold and Band, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, Sept 2001

Meanwhile, an antipsychiatry pundit claims antidepressants are to blame. A Prozac massacre? (Or was it being teased as gay?) Read Columbine: Whose Fault Is It? for Marilyn Manson's view.

Best article by far is Risk factors in school shootings by Stephanie Verlinden [this was her PhD thesis topic], Michel Hersen and Jay Thomas, Clinical Psychology Review, Volume 21, Issue 1, February 2001. (Free PDF.) Very comprehensive. "In all cases, violent intentions were communicated to peers and there was an interest in weapons and targeted violence. ... There was a lack of expressed concern among those who knew the school assailants that they would act on their threats. In all cases, there was a failure of peers to report threats of serious violence and of peers, parents, and professionals to consider them seriously."

Harpold and Band suggest this to help prevent school-associated violent deaths:

...communities must send positive messages to all of their children that they are valuable and important to the community. Parents and other concerned adults must find ways to sincerely praise children, positively recognize their contributions to the community, and actively show children that they are loved and respected.

As if that's going to happen. I hate that I am cynical about it, that child abuse is so problematic. But what's the solution? Good parents are good parents without being reminded to be in news articles. Bad parents don't care, aren't getting or don't want help. So things like Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, PTSD and psychopathy continue. There were over 220 school shooting events in America in just a five-year period (94-99, *). Obviously these kids need "positive messages" they're not getting or likely to get from parents.

Hey! Had enough of analysis and negativity? Read an uplifting, inventive and brilliant novel set around a school shooting:Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland. It's his best. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll stop thinking about the news for awhile.

Risk factors:

• Social withdrawal;
• Excessive feelings of isolation and being alone;
• Excessive feelings of rejection
• Being a victim of violence;
• Feelings of being picked on and persecuted;
• Low school interest and poor academic performance;
• Expression of violence in writings and drawings;
• Uncontrolled anger;
• Patterns of impulsive and chronic hitting, intimidation, and bullying behaviours;
• A history of discipline problems;
• A history of violent and aggressive behaviour;
• Intolerance for differences and prejudicial attitudes
• Drug and alcohol use;
• Affiliation with gangs;
• Inappropriate access to, possession of, and use of firearms; and
• Serious threats of violence (Dwyer, K., et al. 1998)

-- Early Warning, Timely Response: A Guide To Safe Schools, The United States Department of Education, August 1998. Read more in Predictability: An Analysis of Columbine.

More from School Violence: Lessons Learned:

Violence Indicators

Several factors exist that may indicate that individuals have the potential to commit violence. While these indicators are by no means certain or present in every case of violence, children who exhibit these symptoms should receive counseling services in an effort to prevent the potential of future violent acts. [Which may not be effective anyway.]

• The individuals demonstrate low self-esteem.
• The individuals have committed previous acts of cruelty to animals. This is a symptom of child abuse, along with setting fires, bed-wetting (beyond a normal age), and being abusive to adults. FBI research has found that these indicators frequently appear in the childhoods of serial violent sexual offenders and may exist in cases of juvenile violence.
• The individuals are fascinated with firearms. In the six cases of school violence, the offenders used firearms, which they allegedly obtained without parental or guardian consent or stole outright.
• The individuals' mothers or other family members disrespect them. This creates a feeling of powerlessness when coupled with chronic abuse and can initiate the need to exert power over and control another. It also can result in extreme anger.
• The individuals see violence as the only alternative left for them.

In the end? There's no way to know for sure when tragedy may strike, and extremes can't always prevent violence.