The New York Times - 06.08.2019

A12 0 N THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALTUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 2019

El Paso and Dayton Shootings

On Monday morning, President
Trump made his first televised
statement about the mass mur-
ders committed over the weekend
in El Paso, Tex., and Dayton, Ohio.
He called for action to “stop mass
killings before they start,” citing
what he said were a number con-
tributing factors: the contagious
nature of mass murder; the glori-
fication of violence in video
games; and the need to act on “red
flags” to identify and potentially
confine the “mentally ill mon-
sters” that he said commit the
crimes.
Many of these factors have
been studied by scientists for dec-
ades. Here are answers to some of
the most common questions about
the causes of mass murder.

Can one mass shooting inspire
another?

Yes. Police find abundant evi-
dence that shooters have studied
previous crimes, often mimicking
gestures or killing tactics, as if in
homage to previous killers. This is
true both of younger shooters who
mow down unarmed people in
schools, or at random; and of old-
er men who execute innocents in
the name of an ideology — be it op-
position to immigration, white su-
premacy, radical Islam or another
extreme belief.
The man who slaughtered ele-
mentary school children and
teachers in Sandy Hook, Conn.,
had studied the Columbine mas-
sacre, among many others. The
man who shot to death 50 people
at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando,
Fla., had studied a previous at-
tack, in San Bernardino, Calif. In
both cases, the murderers cited
radical Islam as justification.
The young man accused of
shooting to death more than 20
adults and children in a Walmart
in El Paso, Tex., over the weekend
had seen the video posted by the
man who gunned down unarmed
worshipers at mosques in Christ-
church, New Zealand.
Forensic psychologists say that
many would-be mass killers see
themselves as part of a brother-
hood of like-minded, isolated and
resentful boys and men. To them,
previous mass murderers may be
perceived as idols and pioneers.

Are video games to blame for
mass shootings?

The results of studies attempting
to clarify the relationship between
violent video games and ag-
gression have been mixed, with
experts deeply divided on the
findings. A just-published analy-
sis of the research to date con-
cludes that “in the vast majority of
settings, violent video games do
increase aggressive behavior” —
but that “these effects are almost
always quite small.”
The “aggression” in question
falls well short of assault with a
weapon, never mind mass mur-
der. So the weight of scientific
opinion is that video games are
not a decisive factor when a spree
killer decides to act.
Establishing a persuasive link

between shooting digital figures

from the couch and real people in

a mall or school is a long shot. A

huge proportion of males in the

United States have played or are

playing video games; only a hand-

ful commit mass murders. And

video games are even more popu-

lar in Asian countries, where mass

killings are far rarer.

How strong is the link between

mental illness and mass shoot-

ings?

Tenuous, at best. People who

blame mass shootings on “the

mentally ill” are usually reason-

ing backward from the act itself:

the person just shot 20 unarmed

strangers, so he must be “crazy.”

In fact, scientists find that only

a small fraction of people with per-

sistent mental distress are more

likely than average to commit vio-

lent acts: patients with paranoid

schizophrenia, which is character-

ized by delusional thinking and of-

ten so-called command hallucina-

tions — frightening voices identi-

fying threats where none exist.

People living in this kind of mi-

sery are far more likely to be the

victims of violence than perpetra-

tors, but they can act violently

themselves, especially when us-

ing drugs or alcohol. The clearest

recent example is Jared Lough-

ner, the college student who

opened fire at an event in Tucson,

Ariz., hosted by former Rep. Ga-

brielle Giffords in 2011, killing six

and wounding 13. Mr. Loughner’s

online posts demonstrated in-

creasing drug use and paranoid

fantasies.

About one in five mass murder-

ers shows evidence of psychosis,

according to Dr. Michael Stone, a

forensic psychiatrist who main-

tains data on some 350 murderers

going back more than a century.

The other 80 percent have many

of the problems that nearly every-

one has to manage at some point

in life: anger, isolation, depressive

moods, resentments, jealousy.

Would drugging or confining

people showing “red flags” pre-

vent massacres?

No one knows for certain. In his

speech, Mr. Trump mentioned the

teenager who in 2018 killed 17 peo-

ple a high school in Parkland, Fla.

It’s a good example: Before his

murder spree, the shooter talked

of his intentions to such an extent

that classmates joked that he was

the student most likely to shoot up

the school.

“Unfortunately, it is wishful

thinking to believe that there is a

simple set of warning signs, a

phone app or a checklist which

can be used to identify a mass

shooter,” said Dr. Deborah Weis-

brot, director of the outpatient

clinic of child and adolescent psy-

chiatry at Stony Brook University.

She has interviewed about 200

young people, mostly teenage

boys, who have made threats.

“There is no specific ‘profile’ of

a shooter, as is still often some-

times assumed — there have been

both male and female shooters,

and different socioeconomic back-

grounds,” she said.

Red-flag policies, tracking

threats and other signs of trouble,

have been in place for years in

some school districts around the

country. Would-be shooters often

reveal their intentions in dark

asides or rants online. They may

profess respect for past mass

killers even as they stockpile

weapons and ammunition.

Los Angeles County, in particu-

lar, has intervened in scores of

such cases since its program was

implemented in 2007. It has not

had a major school shooting,

though there is no way to know if

the program has prevented any.

Still, such preventive measures

get students into therapy, and

alert parents and teachers to

warning signs: they do not re-

quire forced drugging and con-

finement before any crime has

been committed. Implementing

that kind of policy would require a

thoughtful reconsideration of indi-

vidual rights in this country —

which, given partisan gridlock, is

not likely to happen.

What Drives People to Mass Shootings? Scientists Have Some Answers

By BENEDICT CAREY

an attack upon our nation and a
crime against all of humanity,” Mr.
Trump said of the massacre in El
Paso on Saturday and another in
Dayton, Ohio, on Sunday — at one
point incorrectly referring to Tole-
do as the site of those killings. The
Dayton gunman is not known to
have had a political motive.
Between the two shootings, 31
people have now died.
Mr. Trump, who will visit Day-
ton and El Paso on Wednesday,
took no questions. He also did not
repeat his call on Twitter earlier in
the morning for Republicans and
Democrats to work together to
strengthen background checks
for prospective gun buyers.
That outraged Democratic
leaders in Congress, who accused
Mr. Trump of retreating from
more substantive action on gun
control under political pressure.
“It took less than three hours
for the president to back off his
call for stronger background
check legislation,” Speaker Nancy
Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schu-
mer, the Democratic leader, said in
a statement. House Democrats
passed such a measure in Febru-
ary, but the Republican-controlled
Senate has not acted on it.
Even some Republicans called
on Monday for that blockade to
end. Senators Susan Collins of
Maine, Mike Braun of Indiana and
Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylva-
nia all said a bill to expand back-
ground checks for gun purchases
should be brought to a vote. Mr.
Toomey and Senator Joe Manchin
III, Democrat of West Virginia,
separately called Mr. Trump to
discuss the background checks
bill that they drafted after the
massacre at Sandy Hook Elemen-

tary School in 2012, only to see it

fall to a filibuster.

“The president showed a will-

ingness to work with us on the is-

sue of strengthening background

checks,” the senators said in a

joint statement.

Mr. Trump’s first comments,

made in early-morning Twitter

posts, set some gun control advo-

cates up for disappointment.

“We cannot let those killed in El

Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, die

in vain,” Mr. Trump wrote, adding

that “Republicans and Democrats

must come together and get

strong background checks, per-

haps marrying this legislation

with desperately needed immi-

gration reform.”

Mr. Trump had spent the week-

end at his golf resort in Bedmin-

ster, N.J., where he was thinly

staffed as news of the shootings

unfolded. Perusing the news in

isolation, Mr. Trump tweeted sev-

eral expressions of sympathy,

along with more combative shots

at the news media and his liberal

critics.

By Sunday night, when Jared

Kushner, his son-in-law and senior

adviser, joined him for his return

to Washington, Mr. Trump’s aides

recognized that he needed to do

more. Some advisers suggested

that background checks would be

an easy, bipartisan measure to en-

dorse, but Mr. Trump was uncer-

tain. When early drafts of his re-

marks began circulating, they did

not mention background checks

or immigration, according to two

people briefed on them.

So aides were startled to dis-

cover that the president, sitting in

the White House residence, had

posted a tweet linking the two is-

sues.

In a small meeting with Mr.

Trump in his residence before the

speech, several aides argued that

the linkage was a mistake, and the

president dropped both the immi-

gration idea and the call for back-

ground checks from his prepared

remarks.

It was not immediately clear

what other gun control proposals

Mr. Trump had been referring to

on Twitter. The House passed

back-to-back bills on firearms

soon after Democrats took con-

trol, voting in February to require

background checks for all gun

buyers, including those at gun

shows and on the internet, and to

extend waiting periods for would-

be gun buyers flagged by the ex-

isting instant-check system.

Instead of focusing on meas-

ures to limit the sale of firearms,

Mr. Trump’s later remarks at the

White House ticked through a list

of proposals that Republicans

have long endorsed as alterna-

tives. They included unspecified

action to address “gruesome and

grisly video games” and “a culture

that celebrates violence.”

Trying for a somber tone at the

White House, Mr. Trump repeated

his past endorsement of so-called

red-flag laws that would allow for

the confiscation of firearms from

people found to be mentally ill and

said mental health laws should be

changed to allow for the involun-

tary confinement of people at risk

of committing violence. He gave

no indication of how he would pur-

sue any of his goals.

Mr. Trump also warned that the

internet and social media provide

“a dangerous avenue to radicalize

disturbed minds and perform de-

mented acts.” But the president

has himself amplified right-wing

voices online with histories of rac-

ism and bigotry.

Mr. Trump also emphasized

steps to better identify and re-

spond to signs of mental illness

that could lead to violence, repeat-

ing a familiar conservative formu-

lation that de-emphasizes the sig-

nificance of widely available fire-

arms.

“Mental illness and hatred pulls

the trigger, not the gun,” Mr.

Trump said. Calling those who

carry out mass shootings “men-

tally ill monsters,” he also said he

was directing the Justice Depart-

ment to propose legislation calling

for the death penalty for “those

who commit hate crimes and

mass murders.”

He added that he had “asked the

F.B.I. to identify all further re-

sources they need to investigate

and disrupt hate crimes and do-

mestic terrorism — whatever

they need.”

Gun control groups reacted

sharply to Mr. Trump’s address.

“Let’s be clear: This is not about

mental health. It’s not about video

games. It’s not about movies,” said

John Feinblatt, the president of

Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun

control group. “Those are all

N.R.A. talking points. This is

about easy access to guns.”

Mr. Trump has previously de-

nounced racism with scripted re-

marks that sounded out of tune

with his typical language. After

the killing of a counterprotester at

a white-power rally in Charlottes-

ville, Va., two years ago, he called

white supremacists “repugnant to

everything we hold dear as Amer-

icans.”

But those remarks followed ear-

lier off-the-cuff comments by the

president, who had been criticized

for not more forcefully denounc-

ing the “Unite the Right” rally,

which was organized by neo-Na-

zis. Instead he condemned “ha-

tred, bigotry and violence on

many sides, on many sides.” Mr.

Trump later declared that the

event had “some very fine people

on both sides.”

Aides said that he was referring

to nonviolent protesters defend-

ing Southern heritage, and that he

was angry that the news media

had not paid more attention to left-

wing Antifa activists who en-

gaged in violence.

In March, after an avowed

white supremacist killed 51 people

at two mosques in New Zealand,

Mr. Trump said he did not “really”

see a rising threat from white na-

tionalism. “It’s a small group of

people,” he added.

The president has also previ-

ously declared himself a support-

er of stronger gun control, only to

retreat from the issue. After a gun-

man killed 17 at a high school in

Parkland, Fla., last year, Mr.

Trump startled Republican law-

makers that February when on

live television, he appeared to em-

brace comprehensive gun control

legislation that would expand

background checks, keep guns

from mentally ill people and re-

strict gun sales for some young

adults.

But he made little effort to fol-

low through.

In Texas, law enforcement offi-

cials arrested a suspect, Patrick

Crusius, a 21-year-old white man

from Allen, which is about a 10-

hour drive from the Walmart in El

Paso where the gunman opened

fire on Saturday. In his manifesto,

Mr. Crusius said he supported the

mass shootings in New Zealand.

The gunman in Dayton fired on

popular night-life spot with a high-

capacity magazine that can hold

100 rounds of ammunition. Nine

people were killed, including the

sister of the suspect, Connor

Betts, 24.

Some of the Democrats cam-

paigning for their party’s presi-

dential nomination condemned

Mr. Trump for not calling the El

Paso attack a white supremacist

act of domestic terrorism and

blamed the White House for fuel-

ing white nationalist sentiment.

No federal agency is responsi-

ble for designating domestic ter-

rorism organizations, as has been

the case for international terror-

ism. Similarly, there is no criminal

charge of domestic terrorism, and

suspects who are by definition

considered domestic terrorists

are charged under other laws,

such as hate crime, gun and con-

spiracy statutes.

According to F.B.I. statistics,

there have been eight mass shoot-

ings in the United States since

2017 in which the attackers es-

poused white supremacist views.

Trump Condemns Hate, but Not Guns

From Page A

President Trump, with Vice

President Mike Pence at the

White House, delivered a

10-minute speech in which he

urged that “sinister ideologies”

of bigotry be defeated.

DOUG MILLS/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Eileen Sullivan and Sheryl Gay
Stolberg contributed reporting.

White extremist ideology has been

linked to some of the deadliest active-

shooter episodes in the United States in

recent years, showing the potential for in-

tense violence among adherents who con-

gregate online to cheer on racist attacks.

Since 2011, suspects with ties to white

extremism have carried out at least 17 ac-

tive-shooter attacks, according to an anal-

ysis of F.B.I. and other data. The agency

describes an active shooter as “an indi-

vidual actively engaged in killing or at-

tempting to kill people in a populated

area.”

The suspect in the shooting rampage

on Saturday at a Walmart store in El Paso

was the latest to promote his ideology

with an anti-immigrant manifesto posted

minutes before he opened fire, killing 22

and injuring dozens more.

In the document, the suspect said he

supported the actions of another gunman,

who killed 51 people at two mosques in

Christchurch, New Zealand, this year.

The episode highlights the growing in-

ternational connections among white ex-

tremists, as well as a shift in what drives

the uniquely American phenomenon of

mass shootings.

The Christchurch shooter

said he was inspired by

the Norway attacker.

Three killers made

statements online

supporting the Isla

Vista attacker.

Norway

attacks

Killed 77

Overland Park,

Kan., Jewish

community center

Killed 3

Isla Vista,

Calif.

Killed 6

Charleston,

S.C., church

Killed 9

Roseburg, Ore.,

community

college

Killed 9

Munich

mall

Killed 9

Quebec

City

mosque

Killed 6

Aztec, N.M.,

high school

Killed 2

Tallahassee, Fla.

Killed 2

Pittsburgh

synagogue

Killed 17

Poway, Calif.,

synagogue

Killed 1

El Paso

Killed 22

2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011

These two shooters

corresponded directly.

Oak Creek, Wis.,

Sikh temple

Killed 6

Global Connections Among White Extremist Gunmen

A number of deadly white extremist shootings in the United States have been linked to similar white extremist attacks overseas. Circles show the number of people killed in all

those shootings, and red circles and lines show connections from later attackers to the earlier attackers who influenced them.

Both the El Paso and

Poway gunmen praised the

Christchurch shooter in

manifestos posted online.

Christchurch

mosque

Killed 50

Sources: F.B.I.; Global Terrorism Database THE NEW YORK TIMES

Charleston, S.C. Parkland, Fla. El Paso

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Recent Active-Shooter Episodes

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sources: F.B.I.; Global Terrorism Database

Note: 2019 data is preliminary.

Active-shooter episode White-extremist shooter

White Extremist Ideology Links Wave of Deadly Attacks

This article is by Weiyi Cai, Troy Griggs,

Jason Kao, Juliette Loveand Joe Ward.