Home » Let’s revisit the common claim that mass shooters are fatherless

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Let’s revisit the common claim that mass shooters are fatherless — 19 Comments

  1. OK, so fatherlessness is one possible factor in a particular individual shooter’s psychological makeup.

    We do know that school shootings were very rare prior to the 70’s? 80’s? 90’s? So why were they rare then but all too common now?

    What’s changed?

  2. “ohnny was bad, even as a child everybody could tell
    Everyone said, “If you don’t get straight, you’ll surely go to Hell!”
    But Johnny didn’t care
    He was an outlaw by the time that he was ten years old
    He didn’t wanna do what he was told
    Just a prankster – A juvenile gangster
    His teachers didn’t understand, they kicked him out of school
    At a tender early age just because
    He didn’t want to learn things
    Had other interests – He liked to burn things
    The lady down the block
    She had a radio that Johnny wanted oh so bad
    So he took it the first chance he had
    And then he shot her in the leg
    But this is what she said
    [Chorus]
    (He’s only a lad) You really can’t blame him
    (Only a lad) Society made him
    (Only a lad) He’s our responsibility
    Oh, oh, whoa whoa
    (Only a lad) He really couldn’t help it
    (Only a lad) He didn’t want to do it
    (Only a lad) He’s underprivileged and abused
    Perhaps a little bit confused
    Oh, oh, oh, oh whoa whoa whoa
    Whoa whoa whoa
    Oh, whoa whoa whoa

    [Verse 2]
    His parents gave up, they couldn’t influence his attitude
    Nobody could help, the little man had no gratitude
    And when he stole the car
    Nobody dreamed that he would try to take it so far
    He didn’t mean to hit the poor man
    Who had to go and die
    It made the judge cry

    [Chorus]
    (Only a lad) He really couldn’t help it
    (Only a lad) He didn’t want to do it
    (Only a lad) He’s underprivileged and abused
    Perhaps a little bit confused
    Oh, oh, oh, oh whoa whoa
    [Bridge]
    It’s not his fault that he can’t behave
    Society’s made him go astray
    Perhaps if we’re nice, he’ll go away
    Perhaps he’ll go away, he’ll go away-ay

    [Chorus]
    (Only a lad) You really can’t blame him
    (Only a lad) Society made him
    (Only a lad) Is he our responsibility?

    [Outro]
    Hey there, Johnny, you really don’t fool me
    You get away with murder and you think it’s funny
    You don’t give a damn if we live or if we die
    Oh, oh, oh, oh whoa whoa whoa
    Hey there, Johnny Boy, I hope you fry!”

    -Oingo Boingo, “Only a Lad”

  3. “Dear kindly Judge, your Honor,
    My parents treat me rough.
    With all their marijuana,
    They won’t give me a puff.
    They didn’t wanna have me,
    But somehow I was had.
    Leapin’ lizards! That’s why I’m so bad!”

    From “Gee, Officer Krupke” from the 1961 version of West Side Story:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7TT4jnnWys&ab_channel=JohnLong

    Yes, the lyrics are clean by today’s standards, and the actors are surprisingly neatly dressed, too, but it’s still a good summary of the difficulty of explaining criminal behavior.

  4. Geoffrey Britain:

    Mass school shootings are still very rare (see this), although they used to be even more rare. But school shootings were quite common prior to then; they just didn’t involve mass murder. See this.

    And of course, although this 1927 event wasn’t a shooting, I believe it remains the biggest mass school murder in the US so far.

    It is my opinion that the increase in school mass murder shootings in the last 40 years or so is partly a contagion effect from the wall-to-wall coverage. A lot of these disturbed individuals are hungry for notoriety.

  5. Geoffery B.: “We do know that school shootings were very rare prior to the 70’s? 80’s? 90’s? So why were they rare then but all too common now?

    What’s changed?”

    I can’t find it now, but I saw a chart of the worst mase shootings from 1949 to now/ The chart had 34 mass shootings – obviously the worst in terms of dead and wounded. Six occurred before 1990. Forty-one years and six shootings. Three were Postal workers, one was the Texas U. tower shooter, and oner was a mass shooting in Seattle. I don’t recall what the sixth one was None were school shootings except for the Texas tower. Except for the disgruntled Postal workers, there’s no pattern of cause.

    Twenty-eight mass shootings in the 32 years since 1990. What changed in 1990? Well, that was the beginning of the PC and internet revolution. Interconnectedness was supposed to create a better world. But like television, which held such great promise fora better educated and informed world, it didn’t live up to its promise. The internet has its good spaces (Like Neo’s place), but it has spaces that have become cesspools of the worst side of human beings. Add to that the breakdown of religion and family. I could be wrong, correlation is not causation, but someone with the ability to research the issues might be able to show some proof.

    Neo says it’s complicated and it is, but we need to look for some answers other than banning guns. Can we police the internet? Can we rebuild the family? Can we rekindle the organizations that built character in young men, like the Boy Scouts? Can we improve our system of mental health care? If we are to remain a free and great nation, we need to find some answers.

  6. It’s said mental illness is not a factor, but a fair amount of the shooters have been, formally, in the mental health system. And others, Cruz, Ramos, for two. obviously should have been.

    Twitter post-Uvalde cases; Gadsden, AL, some clown was trying, “aggressively”, to get into an elementary school.Cops showed up;struggled, guy was shot dead.
    A guy fired at a kid’s summer camp in Texas. I think he was arrested.
    Two random nutcases, but both went after kids in groups.
    Copycats, for sure.

  7. and probably an additional host of things that I haven’t mentioned in that list.

    What about evil. As a cause not an effect.

  8. I assert that most mass killers are fatherless. But not school shooters. They’re a different animal.

    Since most black men grow up fatherless and most mass shootings are committed by young black men I’ve made the leap that most mass shooters have grown up fatherless.

    And even including school shootings most mass shooters are black:

    https://mass-shootings.info/

    But maybe this depends on how one defines mass shootings.

  9. This doesn’t address the issue of mass shootings, but does point out the importance of fathers in a son’s life.

    JUNE 17, 2022
    ‘Life Without Father’: Less College, Less Work, and More Prison for Young Men Growing Up Without Their Biological Father

    https://ifstudies.org/blog/life-without-father-less-college-less-work-and-more-prison-for-young-men-growing-up-without-their-biological-father

    Our town had a school shooting in 1996, and the shooter’s parents were in a messy divorce, which did affect the child (he was 14), but his stated motivation was to settle a score with a fellow student. It resulted in 3 dead and several wounded. He was subdued by a teacher who volunteered to be his hostage so he could escape.

    At least, one could say the families were dysfunctional and in turmoil.

  10. Geoffrey Britain, in my opinion the major change has been the endemic exposure of young, and possibly troubled minds, to a drum beat of violent video games, and entertainment. This is compounded by looser parental supervision, often on advice of “experts” (give them their space/privacy); very loose school discipline; and reduced moral education from religious affiliations.

    I have thought so for a long time, and nothing has ever been offered to change that opinion.

    Born in 1935, I grew up in a culture in which guns were common. As a teenager, I, my brother, and several friends had our own guns. While guns were certainly used for violent crimes–to my personal knowledge, there were two murders by gun that took place in a rural setting where there was no law enforcement presence whatsoever–mass, random shootings were basically unheard of, certainly not in schools.

    We had guns. We did not have video games. We had no virtual reality in which to completely isolate ourselves in a violent, fantasy world. Even the “cowboy” serials at the Saturday movies were benign by today’s standards. Today, we must have Hollywood’s version of realism, which often involves war-like shoot outs, and anti-social behavior. Life is depicted as so cheap.

    (Can anyone really imagine a movie today about “Flicka” or “Lassie”? How about “Anne of Green Gables” (1985 was so long ago)? Good grief, none had special effects, explosions, violent car chases, or shoot outs. Where’s the entertainment value?)

    As to other factors; back in the day I think the kids from close knit families tended to be better behaved on a macro level, because we were closely supervised and held accountable. That is a broad statement, and I cannot back up this opinion. I knew a fair share of kids who were from broken homes for one reason or another, and many of those kids were well adjusted. Of course tight school discipline, and in most cases, church influence took up part of the slack.

    Society has made choices, and society is reaping the result. Naturally, many choose to take the easiest path when searching for blame. Clearly, it is guns; and the solution is to get legal guns out of the hands of citizens. No need to even talk about the vast amounts of money supporting the primary negative influences that I cite.

  11. Thanks, neo, for working so hard to get the facts about Uvalde, and not the narrative.

    The lie has gone around the world of course, any number of times. Like with Roy Moore, the facts just won’t matter for a long time, since the lie is so helpful to so many people. But thanks for sticking to it, I’ve been learning a lot.

  12. Frederick:

    You’re welcome.

    I’m not finished with the topic of Uvalde, either. I’m just taking a little rest. I think everyone else has moved on, though, except for the political hay that can be made of it. I’m still interested in figuring out what happened. I think at some point we’ll know more – although of course by then the narrative will have long been set. Actually, it’s already set.

  13. Looking over my ancient blog, most of it was about a long-standing effort to keep time with my daughter after a divorce.

    Started it because all social workers said “send money and forget about her”. Found support with other bloggers, as one by one my liberal friends backed away and disappeared.

  14. That A.E. Housman poem is absolutely haunting. I like XIX: To an Athlete Dying Young, but this one really hit me in the gut. A great post, with an even greater coda to it.

  15. What changed?

    A generation ago, the rationale for having a child changed. Before, a woman wanted a child, wanted to share the gift of life, and she and her husband welcomed the new life and the responsibilities to raise the child to be a contributing member of society. Or, a woman fell pregnant and recognized that in having sex she had been playing with fire. She recognized that she now had enormous responsibilities and faced them. If the man was still around, he married her, even if there wasn’t a lot of love, because he’d been raised to take responsibility. If there was no man around, there was a network of women to help and mitigate the stigma for the woman and her child born out of wedlock.

    But for the last couple of generations, there have been babies that on the surface were “wanted,” but not wanted for traditional reasons. Having a baby was just the next step, after getting married and buying a house. A thing that was expected, and faced with the day in/day out reality of having to care for a child, many men and women kind of disconnected emotionally, since it wasn’t a lot of fun, not like their job was, or like being with friends was.

    There were also children who came into the world as living status symbols. They were accessories for their parents, and were treated as something to maintain instead of someone to foster.

    Children are smart; they can read their parents’ emotions and reactions to them. The accessory children and the (not really) wanted children pick up on their status as either a drain on family resources, or as something to regret. How must it feel, to know your entire existence is something someone might not do again if given the chance?

    In these cases, present fathers are not relevant. How could you respect someone who brought you into the world essentially on a whim and now kind of cringes at the prospect? How could you have a respect for life, when it’s all so arbitrary and haphazard. How could you develop a standard of value for yourself when your parents seem to value their “toys” and possessions more than you?

    The accessory children know what they are. Not all of them become nihilists, but the chances are higher than fifty years ago.

  16. Late to this party. I go with Biology/Genetics. The father that abandons his family or is driven out because he abuses his family has already poisoned his offspring with his “evil seed”. Plus we used to have mental hospitals, “reform schools”, and prisons that quarantined the ” bad actors”. The institutions didn’t “cure” anything but they protected the “normies”. Then we have the Soros-people who refuse to prosecute the savages because of what society “did to them”.

    Mental illness, like schizophrenia, has a genetic component. The predators who prey on others were “born that way”. If they can’t control themselves, quarantine them. There is no therapy/medication for any of the severe mental disorders. Secure facilities are expensive and harsh. Better them than me and mine.

    I still have to wonder about Ramos in Texas. There are a few seemingly professional photos of the shooter in pretty girlie clothes with a tranny flag. Someone was financing and guiding Ramos as a mule or a punk. Politics along that open border where lives are cheap.

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