By Katherine Ramsland

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April 17, 2007

BLACKSBURG, Va. (Crime Library) —In related incidents, a lone gunman who killed himself shot more than fifty people on the campus of Virginia Tech in southwestern Virginia on April 16, 2007.  It started around 7:15 in the morning at a high-rise dorm, with a male and female dead, and ended two hours later in a classroom half a mile away: in all, thirty-three people died.  The rest were treated for wounds or injuries suffered trying to escape.  As the day wore on, little information was offered about the killer, although it appeared from witness reports that he was Asian, about nineteen or twenty, he'd acted alone, and had intended to kill as many people as he could.  He'd ended the spree with a shot to his head.

There have been many reasons for mass murder, from jealousy to payback to the need to make a public statement, with a great deal of damage as its punctuation.  On October 16, 1991, George Hennard, who till now held the U. S. record for most victims in a shooting rampage, rammed his truck into a Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, got out, and started shooting.  Yelling, "This is payback day!" he left 23 dead or dying and 22 wounded before killing himself.  Charles Whitman, a campus shooter in 1966, picked off victims from his vantage point on the observation deck of the clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin.  He killed 15 and wounded 31.

The younger school shooters are somewhat different, in that many attempted to recruit others into their plan or they simply reacted.  Some openly talked about what they wanted to do but most had not thought it through very well.  Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris, Kip Kinkel, Michael Carneal, Barry Loukaitis, and Luke Woodham all had issues with bullies or with feelings of failure, and all selected attacks on classmates as the way to react.  Klebold and Harris also killed themselves.  

It's easy to lump "school shooters" together, but the older they are, the closer their psychological profile is to the classic mass murderer, such as we've seen in many of the workplace massacres.  At the heart of their attacks is rage and frustration, and they're often well armed and well practiced with guns.

Rampage killers tend to be better educated than typical murderers, are usually rigid in temperament, and are often suicidal.  The most significant influence on their outburst appears to be some form of mental illness, along with an inability to absorb life's frustrations and disappointments.  Often, they've made threats in the past and have had fantasies about using violence to get their way.  They usually arm themselves in preparation.  What they do is not from impulse; it's the result of long-term planning with an ultimate goal.  They act alone, although people who know them have seen the red flags.  The older they are, the more detached they are.

While most mass murderers are middle-aged white men, there have exceptions, especially in light of the increase in school shootings. 

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By Katherine Ramsland

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