[music]

President Biden: What struck me was these kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world. Why? They have mental health problems, they have domestic disputes in other countries, they have people who are lost, but these kinds of mass shootings never happen with the kind of frequency they happen in America. Why? Why are we willing to live with this carnage? Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God's name is our backbone to have the courage to deal with it and stand up to the lobbyists?

Brian Lehrer: President Biden last night, and we've talked about the victims of the Texas school shooting on the program today, we've talked about the politics, we've talked about school security. Now we'll discuss some of what is known about the shooter and other school shooters as another part of learning how to prevent or minimize such things in the future. What about US culture compared to other places, as the president was referring to there? With us for this is Adam Lankford, University of Alabama professor of criminology who has studied these issues. Professor Lankford, welcome to WNYC. Thank you for some time today.

Adam Lankford: Sure. Good to speak with you.

Brian Lehrer: First, is there something like a profile of someone who commits these crimes? What we know so far about this 18-year-old shooter, does it fit something that made you as an expert in this field say, "Oh, I recognize this"?

Adam Lankford: Yes, we've had so many of these incidents over the years that it's actually more unusual when someone doesn't fit the profile. Of course, the perpetrator in yesterday's shooting died, and that would not have been a surprise to him. One thing that stands out is that these shooters are often suicidal, expecting or willing to die. That comes from a deep sense of despair or hopelessness, but of course, it's not only being willing to die, but also wanting to harm others.

Certainly, there are a lot of different elements of this. In addition to the anger, there can be a sense of, especially with these young shooters, some toxic masculinity that's part of the cocktail here. Then we often see this fame-seeking or attention-seeking along with sometimes sexual frustration, romantic failures, all sorts of different failures in life. Again, this differs sometimes depending on the age or the circumstances, but when we're talking about, in particular, these high school age shooters, you think about some of the things that young men in high school want, and that young men who commit these crimes clearly aren't getting.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you about the toxic masculinity piece that you just referred to. Earlier in the show, I mentioned that there have been at least a few instances where high profile, public incident shooters have shot women in their private lives. First, Adam Lanza in the Newtown, Connecticut elementary school shooting shot his mother, and then went to the school. This guy reportedly shot his grandmother and then went to the school, the murderer of the two police officers who were assassinated at random, apparently, in New York City in 2014, officers Ramos and Liu, that guy reportedly shot his girlfriend in Baltimore and then drove to New York to commit his public crime. Is there a pattern there?

Adam Lankford: Yes, there are a lot of ways to analyze that. I guess one of the things I've been looking at is how we compare public mass shooters and their violence against women with what we know about violence in this country in general, and what those data show are that these public mass shooters are much more likely to be aggressive, violent, or homicidal towards women. When it comes to homicide in general, 80% of homicide victims in the United States are male. When you think about gang violence, drug trafficking, robbery, burglary, muggings, things like that, often it's men killing other men, and these incidents are different in that respect.

There's often a history of domestic violence, there's sometimes a history of sex offending, there's sometimes actual killing of females before the mass shooting and then the number of female victims killed in the mass shootings is significant as well. These are all indicators, really, that these perpetrators are in the midst often of a crisis of masculinity. They're trying to compensate for their failures by lashing out at those around them, and that can be males or females, but it tends to be more females than we see with other crimes in the United States.

Brian Lehrer: We have to take a short break. When we come back, I want to ask you to respond to what the president said in the clip we just played, about this happening more in this country than any other countries and if it's really true that the US, yes, other countries have mental illness, other countries have domestic violence, but only the US has as much gun violence and mass shooter violence and ask you as a criminologist if you have studied the stats on that and the reasons for that. We'll do that right after this. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

[advertisements]

[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC with Adam Lankford, University of Alabama professor of criminology who has studied mass shootings in the United States, Professor Lankford, how much of an outlier is the US when it comes to mass shootings?

Adam Lankford: Well, unfortunately when it comes to this form of violence, we're doing very poorly. Some of the data I've collected suggest that we have roughly six times as many public mass shooters as we should, based on our population. At the extremes, we have far more of these incidents than even countries like China and India, which dwarf us when it comes to population. There's some forms of violence, armed conflict, civil war, homicide in general, where the United States doesn't compare as poorly, but we're really the world leader when it comes to, unfortunately, our struggles and suffering of these types of incidents.

Brian Lehrer: Can you answer the president's question as to why?

Adam Lankford: Sure, absolutely. The analysis I've done points very clear to one statistical reason, which is firearms, but let me give a little nuance there. I think the problem is not purely the number of firearms in this country, but really the easy access to firearms. As we saw in yesterday's case, that was a perpetrator who despite significant red flags, despite a lot of people in his life realizing that he was deteriorating and a danger to himself and others, he was able to purchase firearms easily within the last few weeks. One of the things my research has found recently is that most public mass shooters are not lifelong gun owners or hunters.

They're not people who just are looking at a gun that's sitting in their closet or sitting in their car and then looking at that gun and deciding they want to use it to kill. They're people who first decide that they want to commit mass murder and then go looking for high powered weapons to commit those crimes. I guess the tragic irony is that these are people who are walking into the gun store already knowing what they're going to do, and if only we could stop them at that point of contact, that point of sale, then we would prevent these incidents. That's where a lot of countries around the world are doing better in terms of screening or not letting dangerous people get firearms and where we've essentially completely failed.

Brian Lehrer: We played a clip earlier of the attorney general of Texas, Ken Paxton, who said we can't stop bad people from doing bad things. If they violate murder laws, they're not going to follow gun laws. Sounds like you disagree with that. The evidence would argue against that.

Adam Lankford: Oh, absolutely. In other words, yes, we can stop them. They are typically buying their guns legally. The whole key here is we have extremely socially awkward and socially disconnected people who do not have connections on the black market, who are not members of gangs where their comrades will supply them with illegal guns. These are people who are often purchasing guns online and then walking into a store and picking them up.

Basically, we couldn't make it easier for them to legally purchase firearms and they might be willing to break the laws to get guns illegally, but it doesn't mean they'd be able to, and frankly, if we make it more difficult for them, if they have to go to more effort to purchase guns illegally, that's a big chance of us catching them and stopping them before they do something terrible [unintelligible 00:11:19] mass murder

Brian Lehrer: Do you think there is also more of this kind of alienation in this country that also makes the risk of these kinds of incidents more prevalent?

Adam Lankford: That's really hard to measure globally. It's hard to code for alienation. I do think one of the things we see is a copycat effect. We have alienated people who are looking at alienated role models who committed this type of violence in the past, and it's becoming a cultural script. Alienated people find different forms of behavior all around the world. Unfortunately, this has become a pattern, especially for those who want to compensate by getting tons of fame and attention. They're successful at doing that here.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Michael in Princeton, I think, wants to ask about what we were just discussing. Michael, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Michael: Yes, I'm talking about the registration of guns. When does the red flag law come into effect? If the person already owns guns and then they become updated that their profile that they're red flagged versus it seems the conversation leans towards the red flag log and then the first-time gun owner.

Adam Lankford: That's a great question. Basically what the law does is it gives law enforcement a legal basis for going into the home and seizing guns if someone has already possessed them and is deemed to be a danger to himself or others. This is a law that's already been enacted in some states, including California. The whole point of the red flag laws is once the red flags are present, you prevent future purchases and you remove firearms that are already possessed, but that's really only in the most extreme cases. The red flags are so obvious in these cases, often the perpetrators are admitting that they're interested in harming themselves or others, that 99.9% of Americans would not be affected.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much for your call, Michael. One more. Helen in Mahwah, you're on WNYC. She's got an international comparison, I think. Hi, Helen.

Helen: Hello. If I'm not mistaken, I believe in Japan, it takes about a year for a person to obtain and purchase a gun. I've heard that there are interviews, questions, and then a number of months later, the person needs to wait and they're interviewed again, why are you using this gun? What are you purchasing it for? Then they're waiting again for another interview before they're allowed to even purchase a gun. That may be something to consider. What's the rush of a person having to have a gun that minute they decide to purchase it. I'll take my answer off air. Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Professor Lankford.

Adam Lankford: It's a great point. Certainly, Japan's not the only country like that. Iceland has a relatively large number of firearms per capita, but again, there's a significant screening process. Again, I guess I would just point to the fact that many of these people are not just buying a gun for personal protection and then deciding that they want to kill. In fact, what I found was that nearly half of public mass shooters were for the first time they ever purchased a firearm, was within six months of their attack.

In some cases, it was even within one month or a few weeks of their attack. These are people who already are planning mass murder, and if they were going through that interview process, they would have to answer some tough questions and answer them convincingly.

Brian Lehrer: We leave it there with Adam Lankford, University of Alabama professor of criminology who has studied mass shootings. Thank you for your knowledge today. Thank you for your time.

Adam Lankford: Thank you.

Copyright © 2022 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.