When serial killers, school shooters, and violent attackers explode, we often wonder what triggered the perfect storm. Why is it that we cannot identify the warning signs of a rampage killer until it is too late? It is not until the damage is done that indicators seem obvious and friends or family are left wondering what went wrong. To try and prevent further tragedies, doctors and psychologists have been working to dissect the minds of the individuals we usually call “crazy,” or “psychotic.” Through extensive research doctors have identified the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala as the two brain regions the most responsible for controlling and causing catastrophic violence. It is important to understand how the human brain works along with mental health issues to create violent individuals.
The prefrontal cortex is located in the frontal
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It is one of the oldest parts of our brains and is wired into our instinctive need to protect, hunt, and defend against immediate dangers and threats. However, today people do not exist in a state where they need to hunt or kill other people to protect themselves. So, when this primitive brain region drives a person to respond to danger, anger, or stress in a violent way, innocent people become victims of a rampage killer. Many times people with mutated amygdala functioning also have suicidal thoughts, depressive feelings, trouble socializing, and feelings of isolation. They are also incapable of handling stress and cannot use multiple brain regions at once, which inhibits higher level thinking and reasoning. When brain regions cannot operate in unison and keep a person under control, the amygdala can go out of control. Coupling violence as a response to anger with feelings of depression, suicide and antisocial disorders we see people building a dangerous combination that is bound to equate to
In fact, she spends much of her time discussing the different branches of mental illnesses and personality disorders. Her tactic is flawed because she constantly mentions what factors can provoke violence. Barron’s examples include a history of violence, adolescence and being male. She goes on to mention what part drugs play a role in a person’s life. Barron explains “If you are under the influence of a drug, your body is altered and you might do some uncharacteristic things”.
The Oregonian, a newspaper catering to residents in the State of Oregon, interviewed Harper-Mercer’s mother shortly after the shooting and discovered that “[he was] dealing with some mental issues, and was intolerant of roaches that had infested the building.” His disgust suggests that he was suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), which, according to Alison Leight Cowan’s article in The New York Times, “is a psychotic disorder.” Therefore, both Lanza and Harper-Mercer illustrate that people with psychotic disorders can and have committed gun violence. As persons suffering from psychotic disorders are unable to safely handle guns, regulations must be implemented to stop these people from obtaining
Zodiac killer Name Institutional affiliation The Zodiac killer is one of the most infamous killers in American history. He murdered at least five people between the 1960s and 1970’s. His victims were often couples who were in secluded places around San Francisco. He received widespread media attention due to his habits of taunting the police and newspapers with coded messages.
Mass shooting episodes have increased over recent decade and received substantial media coverage during the last year. Multiple schools, clubs, and churches, and public places across the United States have been impacted, resulting in the deaths of innocent people. The United States has more mass shootings than any other country between 1966 and 2012. There has been shootings in public places receiving media coverage and giving the perception that they are becoming the new normal.
Many people say that the real weapon used is rage. Guns are not bad things or good things. They are things, inanimate objects, chunks of metal with no will of their own (Medred 2). Why do we as a society not address mental illness more? The majority of all “school shooters” are misfits.
Should teenagers be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole? Many believe that teens should spend life in prison based on the severity of their crime. Others argue that LWOP does not rehabilitate, but punishes teens. Looking at the documentary, When Kids Get Life, I believe that teens should not receive life without parole due to the fact that a teen’s brain is not yet fully formed, causing teens to struggle with decision-making and have an impulse control. Teens should be given a second chance to change in society.
(the kid killer) Eric smith is a well know kid killer in the east. When Eric smith was just 13 years old he did the unimaginable and savagely murdered a 4 year old boy, while he was on his way to a day camp he was attending that day. Eric smith was on his way to a day camp and also was 4 year old derrick Robie.
One of the more memorable stories in the past twenty years is the two young men were responsible for the Columbine massacre in the US. While the Columbine school. This shootings brought world-wide attention to school incidents, but this case was not an isolated, we have a long history of aggressions in schools. A report by the US Secret Service and the US Department of Education in 2002 indicated that in 37 incidents of targeted school shootings and school attacks from 1974 to 2000 in this country, found that “over half of the attackers demonstrated some interest in violence through movies, video games, books, and other media”. (Vossekuil B. 2002)
It seems the closest that anyone has gotten to catching the Long Island Serial Killer may be a phone call. Little is known about whoever is responsible for the 10-plus bodies uncovered in recent years on Gilgo Beach in Long Island, New York. No suspects have ever been identified. But the victims’ friends and family do know this: The killer or killers like to taunt them.
Mental illness significantly affects many around the world. In fact, about four-hundred and fifty million people worldwide suffer from one or more of the different known mental illnesses. That is one in every four people. Severe mental health issues such as severe anxiety disorder, antisocial personality disorder, schizophrenia, or sensory perception disorder are illnesses which are common among the people responsible for the numerous mass shootings in America. Many believe the possession of firearms in the hands of the mentally ill are the real cause of mass shootings.
Most people that commit violent gun crimes are mentally ill, for example the last school shooting that occured on february 14 2018 at Marjory stoneman douglas high school in parkland florida, the gunman Nikolas Cruz was mentally ill. He walked into the school with his guns and shot and killed 17 students and a teacher. He had issues with learning, and controlling his emotions and stuff. (source)
Most of the suspects of mass shootings are young males who usually commit the crime on their own with careful planning of the event. Most perpetrators have a fascination with weapons and the shootings usually occur in broad daylight in public places (Frances). There is an obvious difference in the brain of mass shooters to those of non-mass shooters. Low orbital cortex activity may be the main difference between the two groups of people. About 1 in 100 people are psychopaths, there was a study that was done at UC Irvine by James Fallon where he used a PET scan to measure brain activity.
Much of the criminal activity that takes place today is heavily related to the lack of treatment for mental illness. According to the US National Library of Medicine, approximately 60% of shooter in mass shootings that took place in the United States after 1970 displayed symptoms of acute paranoia, delusions, and depression before committing their inhumane acts. I am sure that most of you are aware of the Sandy Hook shooting that took place on December 12, 2012. The perpetrator, Adam Lanza took the innocent lives of 20 students as well as the lives of 6 staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Lanza had displayed key signs of mental illness as young as the age of three.
Esbensin, Peterson, Taylor and Freng (2010) implies that “ young people who have committed serious violent offenses have the highest level of impulsive and risk-seeking tendencies.” Moreover, extreme violent criminal activity being performed in front of youth increases the risk of them performing acts of extreme violence themselves. Because youth see those acts as acceptable so committng those violent activities make youths to become ruthless. Smith and Green (2007) assert that violent activities becoming ruthless and the perpetrators even more ruthless.
Aggression and paranoia also causes violent acts to take place in which end with scars and heartache for both parties. Schizophrenia is when someone has multiple personalities and they also have hallucinations, which can cause nervous breakdowns and emotional distress. Only eight point four percent of people with this serve mental illness are violent. Most of this behavior takes place because of emotional scars that happened during the younger years of life and it does not also happen because of the disease. This can also happen because like bipolar people they use substances and abuse them.