Every time something like the Las Vegas shooting happens, the question is asked, “Why do people do these things?”
Because of my profession, I get asked that a lot. But no matter how many times I answer, or how many times I refer people to the best and definitive work on the subject, “Inside the Criminal Mind” by Stanton Samenow, the answers never seem to satisfy.
The only people who seem sure of their answers are those who put all their faith in government. “Outlaw guns once and for all, and these shootings will stop.” It’s as if shooting were a behavior, completely detached from a mind, a body, a free will, a consciousness or soul. That’s what B.F. Skinner claimed, but I certainly know better.
Maybe we’re asking the wrong question. Instead of asking, “Why do killers kill?” we ought to be asking, “What makes us vulnerable to people who want to do this?” My assumption is there always have been and always will be evil people. But we’re unwilling, in today’s society, to even use the word evil. The bravest of us will say the word only with the qualification, “I don’t mean to be judgmental, but…” Lack of moral clarity and confidence create a breeding ground for sociopathic killers.
A related question is why we’re vulnerable to these sorts of criminals more in some periods than in others. What is it about post 2000 America that makes it different from the decades before that? Routine violent crime is down. Crime in the 1970s and 1980s was worse than today. But we rarely had these incidents like we now see in movie theaters, schools, and now the famed Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas. Gun control laws are stronger and tighter than they were back then, so you can’t point to gun control as a factor, even though the loudest and shrillest will continue to do so.
by DrHurd.com
