Deadly Dreams: What Motivates School Shootings?
Editor's note (12/17/2012): We are making this article from the August 2007 issue of Scientific American MIND free to all because of its relevance to Friday's deadly shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Some of the statistics are outdated, but the themes and conclusions remain valid.
On August 30, 2006, a 19-year-old youth, clad in a trench coat, drove into the parking lot of his former high school in Hillsborough, N.C.—and began firing. Eight random shots wounded two students. When the police arrived, Alvaro Castillo gave up without a struggle. It was Castillo’s second exploit involving firearms that day. Earlier Castillo had murdered his father in the family home.
Three months later in the small town of Emsdetten, Germany, 18-year-old Sebastian Bosse posted a video message on the Internet: “I can’t f–kin’ wait until I can shoot every mother-f–kin’ last one of you.” He then drove to his former school, armed with out-of-date rifles and homemade pipe bombs. Marching through the building, he shot randomly at students and teachers, injuring 37 people before ending his own life.
And the deadliest school rampage so far occurred on April 16, when a 23-year-old college student named Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and wounded 25 others on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg. After police arrived, Cho put a gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=deadly-dreams
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