A day or two ago there was a mass shooting in the nearest large town. That doesn’t happen round here; hardly anyone has guns, and its pretty rural. When I hear about this kind of thing on the news, I always struggle to understand the mindset of the murderer.
I can totally get feeling hatred and anger toward society; even wanting to hurt people. I’ve had fantasies about wiping out the whole of humanity; just so I can finally be free of the fear of others. I can even understand lashing out in a moment of rage or despair. So I think I get some of the feeling behind it.
What I struggle to get my head around is the planning. These usually aren’t spur of the moment things. These are acts people put a great deal of time and effort into preparing for. That requires using the parts of your mind involved with judgement, rationality, and meaning. That’s a statement; but a statement of what?
If it was people you knew who had personally tormented you, I could understand. But more often it’s just random innocent strangers. Those you know nothing about. Who could be just as unhappy and tormented as you. Why would you want your last act of existence to be inflicting misery on people who could be just as downtrodden as you are?
And it’s not that I’m outraged, or that I think I’m somehow better than those who do this. But I just don’t get it. Some fundamental mistake of reasoning or motivation has occurred, to get them to a place where that seems like a good way to go out. The desire to end my life is born of the motivation to end my own pain. Increasing the pain of others does nothing toward that goal. What possible satisfaction could there be in knowing you’ve ruined the lives of countless random innocents before you meet your end? What good does it do you, or anyone else?
Terrorism for a god or an ideology is understandable; it’s hurting others for a (usually delusional) purpose. But this isn’t terrorism; it’s not for a cause.
Or the cause is misery? The goal is suffering? Then how do you get to a place mentally where it seems like a good idea to increase the amount of pain in the world, just for the sake of it? That’s a kind of moral madness.
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they do it because thats what humans do: if they cant succeed they tear down others. ironic that they while like little babies about injustice while ultimately feeding right into it, thus invalidating their entire righteous argument and reducing them to just another misguided loser. moral of the story, if you’re angry at the world all it takes is 1 bullet to solve everyones problems. at least then youll have a scrap of honor.
Like I said, I get the impulse to tear down others. But to make that your considered, purposeful goal, when it’s not going to benefit you in any way; that just seems mad to me.
I was one one those people. I brought a weapon into a school once, and I was going to be a school shooter. At the last minute, a girl named Tabitha begged me not to hurt anyone, and I didn’t. I still went to prison. I was being bullied at that time. Severely. And the school administration didn’t do anything about it. I’m still at fault. I think people do it because they want people to understand their own pain, even if it’s twisted and distorted. Even if it means causing misery. There’s a lot of anger and frustration behind such an act. And I personally regret it. In the moment though, you don’t think about such things. It’s you and no one else. Its extremely selfish. You only think about you’re own pain. I’m so sorry for the people I’ve panicked. Ive learned better since then, but like, in that moment, I only cared about vengeance and death. I only cared about my own feelings. It’s wrong. And I’m so sorry that you had to go through that
It must take a lot of personal growth to come back from a place like that, and to admit it. I can totally see the motivation with bullying, and I think it’s more understandable when a kid does it in terms of not rationally comprehending the consequences.
If you don’t mind me asking, was your plan to kill particular people who had hurt you? Or were you just planning on shooting at random? Was it something you’d plotted extensively and coolly over time, or more of a spur of the moment thing?
I’m sure you must’ve been in a very bad place mentally, and perhaps it’s just that I’ve never been in that level of pain that I don’t understand. Or that I’ve never had such cause to blame my pain on others.
The city nearby where it happened is a fair distance, and I don’t go there often, so it’s not like I was involved. I just heard about it, and because that kind of thing never happens round here it stuck in my mind.
There were six people in particular. I did research onlinline about a kid named Elliot Rodger. I was going to mimic him. But, I ended up having to much empathy. I ended up shooting no one. Which I’m grateful for.
It was more spur of the moment
From my understanding Elliot Rodger attacked random pedestrians as well as some he had a grudge against. I’m glad you didn’t go through with it, for yourself as well as those who might’ve been hurt.
I was going to go on to provoke the police to kill me, but they mustve had training because they didn’t kill me. Instead, they convinced me to put the weapon down. And I was arrested. The most embarrassing and humiliating moment of my life. I wish I never did it.
That’s some real shit to experience. But at least you didn’t do anything you can’t come back from.
I understand the motivations perfectly, that doesn’t mean I share the sentiments or agree with them, but I don’t think sharing those motivations here is a good idea, but I’m always available on discord to talk if curiosity gets the best of you, because I CAN explain the logic. I don’t get what’s so hard to understand about mass shooters. Someone like the Joker, for example, would be a little harder to understand.
Possibly it’s just not something I have it in me to comprehend. Why do you think the Joker’s harder to understand? Is ‘wanting to watch the world burn’ not kind of similar? Although I gather the Joaquin Phoenix version gives the character a more sympathetic backstory.
I mean the more nuanced and intricate thought patterns behind the character, like what he means by that little speech where he talks about things going to plan and brings up how “Everyone loses their minds”. People speculate getting into the character of the Joker negatively affected Heath Ledger’s mental health…