Reader JD writes:
I used to be on the board of a regional mental health services provider and have been thinking about mass shootings and their cause. It’s pretty clear that we are dealing with the ego deflation of a generation of special snowflakes who enjoyed participation awards in school, but find the real world after school (high school or college) less solicitous. The South Carolina church shooter was quoted as being ‘on a mission’ . . .
and scoped out three different venues for his attack [mall, college, then the church] over a four month period. The Aurora puke’s record with his shrink show the same desire for notoriety as he dismally failed in his post graduate education. The Newtown monster’s ego was was being stoked, post school, by his delusional mother.
All three pukes carefully selected venues where they would not be challenged, so they would achieve the maximum measure of notoriety. Sharing the celebrity spotlight would have been a failure in their warped minds. Confirmed by the total absence of escape plans after their actions.
Until American society goes back to celebrity based upon achievement, rather than outrageous misbehavior, losers at the margin of society will have clear incentives to embark on ever more depraved actions. Who today can mention even one Nobel Prize winner in the last three years? The Kardashians are front and center in everyone’s mind, though. The mental health community certainly knows aberrant self gratification is driving these losers, but they have painted themselves in a corner elevating unworthy egos as a cornerstone of their treatments and overall policy.
Banning flags and guns is a waste of effort and a total distraction from the real cultural causes of this continuing nightmare.