Tulsa shooting is the nation’s 233rd mass shooting in 2022, per Gun Violence Archive
Four more dead, plus the shooter. Multiple wounded. No known motive.
But there was a target Wednesday afternoon: the second floor of St. Francis Hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Capt. Richard Meulenberg of the Tulsa Police Department told the Washington Post the gunman’s were not random or indescriminate. The shooter, still unidentified along with his victims, “had purpose” and “intent.” Just what is unclear. He took his own life as police arrived.
The shooter, aged 35-40, carried and fired both a rifle and a handgun.
Police Capt. Richard Meulenberg also said multiple people were wounded and that the medical complex was a “catastrophic scene.” The exact number of wounded was not immediately available.
Police and hospital officials said they were not ready to identify the dead.
St. Francis Health System locked down its campus Wednesday afternoon because of the situation at the Natalie Medical Building. The Natalie building houses an outpatient surgery center and a breast health center. Dalgleish said an orthopedic clinic also is located on the second floor where officers discovered the shooter and several victims.
Once, such spree shootings were a way to gain notoriety. A gunman would take out as many random people as possible before suicide by cop or by putting a round in his own ear. (Almost uniquely his.)
My baby said, I was crazy
My mama called me lazy
I was gonna show ’em all this time
Researchers Jillian Peterson, an associate professor of criminology at Hamline University, and James Densley, a professor of criminal justice at Metro State University, began studying mass shooters, looking for patterns. Social contagion is a risk. They sketched out a profile for Politico:
Peterson: There’s this really consistent pathway. Early childhood trauma seems to be the foundation, whether violence in the home, sexual assault, parental suicides, extreme bullying. Then you see the build toward hopelessness, despair, isolation, self-loathing, oftentimes rejection from peers. That turns into a really identifiable crisis point where they’re acting differently. Sometimes they have previous suicide attempts.
What’s different from traditional suicide is that the self-hate turns against a group. They start asking themselves, “Whose fault is this?” Is it a racial group or women or a religious group, or is it my classmates? The hate turns outward. There’s also this quest for fame and notoriety.
POLITICO: You’ve written about how mass shootings are always acts of violent suicide. Do people realize this is what’s happening in mass shootings?
Peterson: I don’t think most people realize that these are suicides, in addition to homicides. Mass shooters design these to be their final acts. When you realize this, it completely flips the idea that someone with a gun on the scene is going to deter this. If anything, that’s an incentive for these individuals. They are going in to be killed.
It’s hard to focus on the suicide because these are horrific homicides. But it’s a critical piece because we know so much from the suicide prevention world that can translate here.
For younger shooters, says Petersen, there is often some form of announcement or outreach prior to the shooting.
If you’re saying, “I want to shoot the school tomorrow,” you are also saying, “I don’t care if I live or die.” You’re also saying, “I’m completely hopeless,” and you’re putting it out there for people to see because part of you wants to be stopped.
As for these attacks being a way to gain notoriety in death, I’m doubtful that is an incentive anymore. Perhaps mass-shooters are slow to notice that with the frequency of these attacks, a mass murderer no longer gets even 15 minutes. Who can name three recent mass shooters?
After decades of having studies blocked by the gun lobby, the Centers for Disease Control just last year received funding to track gun violence as a public health risk.
About time. We seem to have an epidemic.
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