One theory of campus shootings

Going Postal.

Ever since a spate of violence by postal workers began in the late 1980s this phrase has been used to describe acts of workplace violence. And it was the phrase used by one celebrated account of the Columbine High school massacre.

The writer Mark Ames has argued that Columbine itself was the root cause of the terrible events in the school that, eerily, will have its anniversary in four days time. (Ames said last year: "Ever since Columbine, massacre plots always start to peak around April 20")

His ideas seem worth revisiting as today's news is being absorbed. But I wonder if his theory about workplace brutality as a cause will prove a useful way of understanding the Virginia shooting.

Comments

[Richard Young]

These things are horribly complex. But at the risk of stating the obvious, can we not just lay the vast majority of the blame at those who willfully misinterpret the second amendment? It's no coincidence that we haven't had a maniac able to shoot dead multiple victims in a single spree with firearms since Hungerford and Dunblane effectively outlawed them.