Mass Murderers

Abstract

A nonrandom sample (N = 30) of mass murderers in the United States and Canada during the past 50 years was studied. Data suggest that such individuals are single or divorced males in their fourth decade of life with various Axis I paranoid and/or depressive conditions and Axis II personality traits and disorders, usually Clusters A and B. The mass murder is precipitated by a major loss related to employment or relationship. A warrior mentality suffuses the planning and attack behavior of the subject, and greater deaths and higher casualty rates are significantly more likely if the perpetrator is psychotic at the time of the offense. Alcohol plays a very minor role. A large proportion of subjects will convey their central motivation in a psychological abstract, a phrase or sentence yelled with great emotion at the beginning of the mass murder; but in our study sample, only 20 percent...

Abstract

Much attention has been devoted in the past several years to public incidents of mass murder. Events such as the shooting on a Long Island commuter train in 1993, the massacre in Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, or the seemingly numerous workplace homicides have received intensive media coverage and public interest. As a consequence, a stereotype of mass murder has emerged that may or may not be very accurate. This study examines incidents of mass murder that occurred in public settings in the United States between 1965 and 1995 to more closely scrutinize both the events and the offenders involved.

Anna Ornstein, M.D. Additional Information

Professor Emerita of Child Psychiatry, University of Cincinnati; Lecturer in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; and Supervising Analyst, Boston Psychoanalytic Institute

This paper is a revised and enlarged version of one delivered at the 17th International Congress of the International Association for Group Psychotherapy, Rome, August 24–29, 2009. Anna Ornstein, M.D. 60 Longwood Ave. Brookline, MA 02446 E-mail: annaornstein@aol.com

Sandy Hook, Aurora, the Washington Navy Yard, Fort Hood, and Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. These place names signify terrible tragedies that continue to prompt deep reflection from policymakers and the public about how to stop acts of mass violence in the United States.

While FBI statistics show that levels of violent crime in the United States, including murder, have steadily declined since 1991, acts of murder and non-negligent manslaughter still claim about 15,000 lives a year. More than half of all such violent crimes in a given year are typically committed with guns. Over the past 30 years, public mass shootings have resulted in the murder of 547 people, with 476 other persons injured, according to a March 2013 Congressional Research Service report. “[W]hile tragic and shocking,” the report notes, “public mass shootings account for few of the murders or non-negligent homicides related to firearms that occur annually in the United States.”...

As the country reels from news of yet another senseless mass killing in suburban Milwaukee, coming on the heels of the even more deadly massacre in Aurora, Colorado, Americans are left to wonder what could possibly be responsible for this outbreak of bloody insanity and murder. But as terrible as these two incidents were, they have an undeniable ring of familiarity about them – since the year 2000, there have been twenty-six cases of mass murder (four or more victims) in the United States, as opposed to twenty combined during the 1980s and 1990s. And before the 1980s, mass killing sprees were actually quite rare in this country, usually averaging no more than one or two per decade. So it appears we are looking at a trend of madness that began approximately thirty years ago and has been picking up steam every since.

While the anti-gun forces came out in legion following the killingsy...