Misplaced Hate as the Force Behind Mass Shootings

By Richard Kim / Spring 2020

Note: In the Spring of 2017, I witnessed the La Jolla Crossroads shooting and from there it was a downward spiral. I did not think the shooting would affect me the way that it did. I developed insomnia and could no longer function because of lack of sleep. I depended on alcohol to help me sleep, which caused a lot of other problems. Last year, counseling helped me, but it was a hard recovery. I was finally back on track and trying hard to graduate and pass my classes when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. I’ve written this essay to look deeply at a violence that affects many of us directly and indirectly.

On the morning of April 20, 1999, the city of Littleton, Colorado and the United States received one of the biggest shocks of their lives.  Two students of a high school went on a shooting rampage in their high school. The name of the school will forever remain etched in the minds of Americans forever. The Columbine High School shooting was the first major shooting news report I have seen. I was twelve years old at the time and wondered how could this happen in a place where children were supposed to learn and feel safe. I could not quite remember accurately, but the news coverage on the shooting went on for an extremely long time. Every day when I would turn on the television, there was some new development regarding the shooting and the shooters. Sometime later, Virginia Tech shooting became the deadliest school shooting in the history of the United States. This shooting affected me tremendously because the shooter was a Korean student. The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in the city of Newtown, Connecticut was a tragedy where we lost victims as young as six years old. Our society focuses on individual strengths and accomplishments over helping others. You alone must work hard to achieve your goals, so in consequence you cannot help or bring anyone up along with you. Competition is the driving force of our society today, a neoliberal society. Your peers become steppingstones to climb to the top or end up getting stepped on. This social pressure to succeed alone and bear the hardships can really hurt the mental states of normal citizens.

As I searched online on the details of these shootings, the article would state “… this would be known as the deadliest shooting in United States history…” and after a couple sentences, a statement would follow “… until a [specified time] later this was surpassed by [mass shooting]…”  This cascade of links would connect me to details of a more horrific event that follows the previous vicious shooting. As I searched the Columbine shooting, it linked me to the Virginia Tech shooting, then to the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, and finally to the shooting of the Las Vegas shooting that had left 58 people dead and 869 injured.  I wanted all firearms to be banned in the United States, but I know this is not a plausible or rational solution. The Second Amendment defends the rights of all Americans the right to bear arms.  As I thought deeply to myself, I feel that gun laws are no longer the issue. As I was watching the documentary by Michael Moore, “Bowling for Columbine”, I wanted to really think about why America had so much more gun violence cases than the rest of the world.  What differentiated in the American mindset that would make them go on a shooting rampage?  Who should be blamed for these shootings? The documentary gave an assortment of reasons of why we see so much more gun violence in the United States. The reasons ranging from the violent history of our country, the United States is more diverse than the rest of the world, that there is more access to guns and ammunition, or violent video game/movies. All these reasons were debunked, and I became frustrated because there was not a specific reason or explanation the goal of these mass shootings.

American must have lost their compassion for their fellow citizens. From lecture, we have learned that neoliberalism “sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations” (Day 14 Pg. 10). There may be a sort of numbness in these shooters. They have lost their ability to care for anyone else, even themselves. “Societies are held together by a web of social bonds that give individuals a sense of being part of a collective and engaged in a project larger than the self” (Hedges), and then these social bonds do not exist, a person’s mental state can start to waver and turn very dark.  These dark thoughts can manifest into harmful thinking, “The shattering of these bonds plunges individuals into deep psychological distress that leads ultimately to acts of self-annihilation…” (Hedges). Individuals, particularly minorities, have come to terms with their current social conditions that the myth of the American Dream is false, and continue to survive.  How about the white Americans, where they have all the advantages at their disposal and continue to live a difficult life?  Hedges’ article says, “… because of white supremacy, are more susceptible to the myth, and therefore more infuriated when that myth is exposed as a con.” (Hedges), this revelation can manifest into a blaming frenzy. They will start to look who to blame and hate for their shortcomings.  Ideologies such as xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia, anti-Semitism could begin to surface and as thoughts of hate and blame begin to fester, it can lead to a destructive end. This misplaced hate can contribute to their impulse to go through with a mass shooting. As stated before, there is no singular reason or explanation to a mass shooter’s heinous act.

While watching the documentaries and reading articles on other mass shootings, these shooters caused the maximum amount of damage and chaos they can before they turn the harm onto themselves. I feel this is the final blow to the victims and their families because there is only loss, no justice, and more questions. All that remains after the dust clears is broken hearts of families and friends that can no longer get an answer for their losses. Is it a change in social paradigm shift that we need, or can these individuals learn to accept and adapt to their current situation to ease their mental unrest?

Work Cited

Hedges, Chris. “American Anomie.” Truthdig, 24 Sept. 2018.