Guns, mental illness, missed signals: David Krajicek goes inside the minds of men who murder

David Krajicek, who writes a true-crime column for the New York Daily News, has published a book that attempts to get inside the minds of those who kill a lot of people: mass murderers.

The book is titled Mass Killers: Inside the Minds of Men Who Murder, and to write it Krajicek looked at the writings and recordings of those who commit such crimes. In a recent article in TheCrimeReport.org, he summarizes some of his findings:

Three factors turn up frequently: mental illness, easy access to firearms (especially assault rifles), and missed signals by parents, law enforcers, school officials, or other authority figures. Many seek to blame others and exact revenge for a history of personal failure. Socially and emotionally isolated, they strike out after an event that they blow out of proportion—a breakup, for example. Source: Inside the Minds of Men Who Murder | The Crime Report

But the phenomenon of the mass murderer is more complex than simply looking at psychological or environmental factors.

The mass murdered suffers from some kind of deprivation — sexual, social, etc. — that he (they are almost always male) spins into a narcissistic excuse for taking the lives of other people.

Many (of the writings and recordings of mass murderers) share what another academic researcher called “common psycholinguistic themes,” including a “pseudocommando mindset” and “heroic revenge fantasy.”

This article in TheCrimeReport.org is brief and fascinating.