Medicine

Murder-Suicide and tragedy at Virginia Tech.

By Chris Rangel MD ⋅ April 16, 2007 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

A young male armed with two handguns (reportedly either 22 and/or 9 mm caliber) and a ton of ammunition confronts his girlfriend whom he accuses of infidelity. He then kills her and an adviser. Two hours later (presumably, the same murderer) kills 30 more at a nearby lecture hall and then shoots himself before police can reach him. Today was the worst mass shooting in American history.

Is this a call for or against tighter gun control? Actually neither because this horrible event is not a systemic failure or indicative of a systemic problem. Rather it’s an aberrant occurrence that has much less to do with the availability of firearms than with the phenomenon of murder-suicide and mass murder.

There are an estimated 1000-1500 murder-suicide related deaths in the U.S. each year. Unlike many of those occurring in politically volatile countries (Israel and Iraq), murder-suicides in western countries almost always involve domestic violence (74% involved the murder of a wife or girlfriend) or acquaintance violence (i.e. workplace murders).

In 90% of the domestic violence cases the murderer was male who was reacting to a failed or failing relationship or the infidelity or even the paranoid delusion of infidelity of his partner. Usually the murderer has a pathologically abnormal attachment to the victim and often acts impulsively, but not always.

In many of these cases the murderer turns their violence against other family members (familicide) or more rarely against bystanders (extrafamilial) and turns a solitary murder into mass murder. It’s not clear to me why this occurs though there may be a connection to how much the murderer is predisposed to being a psychopath. This pathology is rare (<1%). Kelleher separates mass murder cases into several categories including perverted love, politics and hate, and revenge killings which is further subdivided into workplace murders (disgruntled worker), targeted group killers, and school killings. With regard to this last subtype, a separate study of 34 teenage mass murderers (1958-1999) found that 70% were described as loners or outcasts, most had a history of drug or alcohol abuse, and many had a prior history of violence and had experienced violent fantasies. Of particular interest was that 43% were bullied. Part of the rationalization for murder in these cases is an attempt to reverse the situation on their perceived tormentors so that they become the aggressor (i.e. the one with power).

In contrast, workplace killers tend to be older (average age 38) and often chronically socially isolated and faced with the loss of salary and/or job status. The loss of the main (often only) thing that gives meaning to their lives leaves them confronting what they see as a bleak future. They rationalize mass killing as a symbolic attack on a targeted business or institution via the elimination by murder of its members (students, coworkers). This depersonalization of their victims is referred to as “murder by proxy.” Older mass murderers are also more likely to commit suicide after the event.

Revenge killings often follow an extended period of increasing frustration, depression, and perceptions of victimization and helplessness in the future murderer’s professional and/or personal life. The trigger is often a rejection by peers or a romantic interest or discipline by authority. The VT killer was reportedly in his early to mid 20s and likely there were elements of both workplace and school revenge subtype killings that combined to lead to this horrible event.

However, murder-suicide and mass killings such as this one offer little in the form of coherent arguments either for or against gun control. On the right is the argument that fewer restrictions on gun ownership and possession would enable society to protect itself against the occasional psychopath. But there is no clear-cut data connecting violent crime rates directly to rates of gun ownership. I.e. the deterrence effect of firearms has not been definitively proven especially when an impulsive psychopath rather than a relatively rational criminal is involved in the equation.

And in the US the majority of firearm related fatalities involved cases of domestic or acquaintance violence or suicide. Liberally arming entire student populations does not appear to be either practical or a safe alternative considering the normally higher rates of alcohol and drug use/abuse and depression/suicide in these populations.

On the left is the argument for more restrictions on gun ownership and possession. Historically the left has faced an uphill battle against the NRA and a broad interpretation of the 2nd amendment and have resorted to half-measures like bans on “assault guns”, waiting periods, and background checks rather than outright bans. The assailant involved in the VT massacre reportedly used two common and easily obtained legal handguns. This seems like a gift to the anti-gun lobby.

But if these guns were obtained illegally (early reports indicate that the serial numbers were removed) then this simply conforms to the rhetoric of the pro-gun lobby, that if all guns are banned then only criminals will have them. From a practical standpoint this seems obvious. There are so many handguns in this country (legal and illegal) that even a national ban would likely take decades to effectively reduce the risk of another school massacre (though it could significantly reduce the rates of firearm fatalities from domestic violence and suicide).

Though this is the worst mass shooting, this is not the worst incident of school violence in US history. That horrible title still belongs to the Bath School Disaster of 1927 in which 45 people including 37 children (ages 8-13) died as a result of explosions from dynamite and pyrotol intentionally set off by disgruntled school board member, Mr. Andrew Kehoe. Ironically, Federal laws governing the purchase, transportation, and use of explosive materials like dynamite appear to be more restrictive than those involving handguns.

Unfortunately, the best lesson to come out of this is for law enforcement and first responders. Don’t automatically assume that multiple homicides in normally peaceful communities where the killer(s) is still a large are isolated incidents in which a rational murderer is attempting to flee and has no interest in further violence or the taking hostages thus drawing attention to their location.

Did the murderer have Asperger’s Syndrome?

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070419/D8OJTJD02.html

http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/aspergerscaleAttwood.html