Expert Challenges Mass Shooter Myth: They Don’t Just Snap

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: But now we turn to a different crisis across the Atlantic, gun violence in the United States. Journalist Mark Follman has spent the last decade focusing on that issue. His new book “Trigger Points,” details how leaders could go beyond their thoughts and their prayers, and actually solve this problem. And he joins Michel Martin as Brooklyn is still recovering from this week’s subway shooting.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHEL MARTIN, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Christiane. Mark Follman, thank you so much for joining us.

MARK FOLLMAN, AUTHOR, “TRIGGER POINTS”: It’s a pleasure to be here, thank you.

MARTIN: So after the massacre at the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado in 2012 you and Mother Jones created a – I think it was the first of its kind, like an open source database documenting mass shootings in the United States. So, would you just tell us a little bit about your research? Just set the table for us, tell us some of the basics. How do you define a mass shooting? Has it changed over the years?

FOLLMAN: So after the Aurora theater massacre, I was asking the question what’s going on here? This was, at the time, an unprecedented event. And I really wanted to know more about this particular type of mass attack. And I went looking for data and was startled to find that there was virtually nothing available. So that was the catalyst for building this database that we began working on at Mother Jones, and collected data on dozens of cases going back 30 years. Of course, we began adding to it with frequency and have ever since. And one of the interesting findings early on was that a lot of the guns being used in these crimes were obtained legally. Another I think very stark data point was that many of these mass shooters were suicidal, which speaks (inaudible) the mental health issues going on in these cases. And perhaps to prevention work (ph). And another thing that I learned pretty early on from studying these cases and digging deeper into them was that there was indeed a trail of behavioral warning signs in all of these cases. That there were ways to see this coming, contrary to this popular theme that we have in our media coverage that nobody could have possibly imagined this guy would have done this. You know, we hear these kinds of comments from people who are close to the perpetrators of these attacks, often that he was a quiet guy, and I couldn’t have imagined this. And it conveys this sense that these are undetectable and that they sort of burst out of nowhere, and that’s not true. In all of these cases there is a whole trail of behavior and activity that is often noticeable to people around the perpetrators of mass shootings. So I think that was an important early discovery, and that’s part of what led me to write the book.

MARTIN: Any changes over time in what you’ve seen the trajectory here, or is it the similarities that standout to you?

FOLLMAN: Yes, well one big question early on that also prompted the search for data is, is this happening more often? And we developed a set of criteria because one of the challenges with studying this issue is what is a mass shooting? And there’s been some considerable debate about that in recent years, and there’s some broader criteria that is often used by the news media to say there are hundreds of these cases a year. That’s not the way we came at it. We used a much more narrowly defined criteria that looked at public attacks often by a lone shooter in which four or more victims were killed. That later on changed to three or more because we were following the guidelines of the federal government, which then decided to define it as three or more. But ultimately this is an arbitrary baseline for victims.

MARTIN: But why killed? I mean, you can be grievously hurt in a shooting and not die.

FOLLMAN: Absolutely.

MARTIN: I mean, you can have lifelong injuries.

FOLLMAN: Right. It underscores that there is no perfect way to define this problem, right? Because the New York City subway attack that we just saw, no one died fortunately. But that is this type of mass shooting where a whole bunch of people were injured. And so it is a problem of defining and understanding this issue. But in order to get a data set you have to draw some lines, and so that’s the way that we did it. And with that more conservative approach what we found is that this problem has escalated over the past decade by nearly threefold. So it is a growing problem in terms of these specific types of public mass shooting events.

MARTIN: Any thoughts about why?

FOLLMAN: It’s a really tough question to answer. I think there are some broader cultural and political forces in play, right? And certainly in recent time with the stresses of the pandemic, with our political volatility in recent years, polarization that’s going on, the continual increase in the amount of firearms that are available in the country. There was record gun buying in the last couple of years. So all of these things coming together, I think are creating a more volatile mix. And even with that though, it’s hard to answer that question, what is it that makes our society so violent in this way?

MARTIN: Let’s talk about the latest incident that brings us together, this horrifying incident in the New York City subways. And for people who are not from New York, who’ve never visited New York, it’s just – I just feel like I need to explain just how important the subway is to the life of New Yorkers. You know, subway is kind of the lifeblood of the city, it’s how people get around. It’s – I don’t know, it’s like, it’s a fundamental part of life in New York for most people. And you know, a man (ph) – all of – it’s horrifying on every level. Smoke, you’re underground, you’re in a closed in space, it’s rush hour, you’re surrounded by people and then the person starts shooting. Now, we do know that the person has – the person’s been apprehended, and some facts about this person are starting to emerge. So just tell me what stands out to you about this incident.

FOLLMAN: Yes, I think that it was very horrifying in the way that you’re talking about – you know, in a certain sense touched people in a way that is very broad based. To imagine going through that, for people who use public transportation. And that is part of the nature of this problem, as I’ve studied it. These mass shootings, there is a quest for sensationalism in a lot of the perpetrators. If you think back to when a man walked into a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado and opened fire, and shot dozens of people. At the time that was an unprecedented act in a movie theater. That wasn’t entirely a coincidence, and we’ve seen this happen with schools and other settings. And so, this is a clue to some of the behaviors that go into these attacks, and they are planned attacks. These are people who were (ph) thinking about carrying out what they see as a valid idea for a solution to their grievances, and rage, and problems – and they’re seeking attention for it in many cases. And I suspect that that’s in play in this case too. I want to be careful because there’s still a lot about this case that we don’t know yet. But we do know that this was an attack that was planned over a lengthy period of time, and therein lines the promise of this approach of behavioral threat assessment, that the field of prevention work that I write about in “Trigger Points,” which is to focus on this process of behaviors and circumstances, and thinking that leads up to these attacks, and use that as a window of opportunity to intervene before it’s too late. The question (ph) –

(CROSSTALK)

MARTIN: Tell us more about why you say – you say that one of the big myths is that people just snap. And you’re saying that that’s just not true, that most of these attacks are in fact, planned. Tell us more about that.

FOLLMAN: That’s right. This is one of the, I think very unhelpful myths that we recycle in the news media after every one of these attacks. You always hear the question asked, what made the guy snap? As if this was an impulsive crime, an impulsive act – just went crazy and decided to go shoot up the subway. No, that’s not what happened here. If you look at the case evidence that we already have, even just within a couple of days this is a person who was thinking about doing this for a long time. Planning it, taking steps toward it, and then going and doing it. And so, if we understand that better we have more knowledge to work with to try to get at the nature of this problem, and get in the way of it.

MARTIN: So talk to me about the mental health aspect of this. You say that you think that the kind of mental illness dimension of this is misunderstood. I’m struggling with – to understand your point of view here, because this is – is this you think people are not mentally ill who engage in this conduct? They think this is kind of rational behavior? But isn’t that one of the hallmarks of some aspects of mental illness is you don’t know you’re sick?

FOLLMAN: It’s a great question, Michel. And this is a tough aspect of this, I think in part because we sort of run up against the limits of language, in a certain sense, with our lay (ph) understanding of mental illness. The issue here is that, as I was saying earlier, these are planned attacks. These are not people who are insane who are just snapping. And that sort of popular narrative is misguided in terms of understanding what’s going on here. There are other issues with blaming mental illness, and we see mental illness often blamed for these attacks as the cause. But there isn’t really any scientific evidence to support that. There’s a long body of case research and broader research in the mental health field that shows that mental illness is not correlated with violent behavior in any meaningful way, it’s not predictive of violence. Most people who have clinically diagnosable mental illness are not violent, and in fact are more likely to be victims of violence. So when we blame mental illness, it’s counterproductive and stigmatizing. Where this gets difficult in the context of mass shooters is that these, of course, are people who are not mentally healthy. They have lots of very serious problems, and mental illness may be in the mix. But the distinction, I think is what we tend to call crazy or insane. You know, we regard these people as completely detached from reality. But that’s not the case in most of these cases. These are people who do have rational thought processes in terms of – you know, developing an idea for what they want to do, and then planning it, and carrying it out. So to just dismiss it as crazy doesn’t help us understand it, let alone prevent it from happening.

MARTIN: So what would help? What is a more constructive way to look at this phenomenon?

FOLLMAN: Well, I do see a lot of promise in this method, behavioral threat assessment that I write about in “Trigger Points.” I was able to gain access to a lot of cases, particularly in school settings, and one in particular in the city of Salem, Oregon which is one of the pioneers of this model in an educational setting. And with these cases, see a whole range of individuals who were struggling with some serious problems and then behaving in ways that were raising alarm. And in the hands of a multidisciplinary team, a threat assessment team that brings to bear expertise in mental health, in education, in law enforcement, in juvenile social services – bringing together these people to evaluate and then develop a plan to manage and (ph) offer constructive interventions. I’ve seen cases where over time, over many months that helps a person onto a better path away from violent thinking. And in the long-term, goes on to do OK, or just fine and doesn’t commit violence. It is one of the tricky things about this field, is the question of how do you measure success, right? Because the evidence of success in a threat assessment case is the absence of evidence, it’s the absence of a violent outcome. So in a certain fundamental way we’re relying on that counterfactual information to measure the efficacy of the work. But I been –

(CROSSTALK)

MARTIN: But you argue – but you argue in the book that there have in fact been numerous potential incidents of violence that have been averted because of these specific methods.

FOLLMAN: Yes, I think as much as we can say that in the context of a counterfactual, right? I talk about – I write in detail about one case in the book of a high school kid named Brandon, who threatens to bring a gun to school and shoot up the school in a very specific way. He talks about the day he’s going to do it, he talks about how he’s going to acquire the gun from his father’s gun safe, he’s obtained the code. These are important signals to a threat assessment team, that kind of specificity. They looked at him quickly to understand what’s going on there, and to try to assess does he have access to a weapon? What else is maybe driving this violent thinking? He had a whole history of problems and circumstances that were going on that they were able to address through reaching out to him with counseling support, with educational support, monitoring him closely, working with the family – which isn’t always possible. So it’s complicated work, but in this particular case that I write about in the book you could see how over time getting this kid the help that he needed was very effective.

MARTIN: It’s a tricky issue because the reality of it is, Mr. Follman, that statistically white males are more likely to own a gun than any other demographic in the United States, it’s just a fact. On the other hand, some of the kinds of violence that is so destabilizing to a community – like shooting up a movie theater, or shooting up a basketball court for example. I mean, I just wonder how this model – how does this model address something like that? Or even this subway – this person, the subway shooter here who was an adult, who was isolated. I just wonder, how does that – how does it work? I mean, does this involve like constant monitoring of social media? Like, how does it work that these tools could be brought to bear?

FOLLMAN: Yes, you’re going to another great and essential question here about how you can potentially scale this more broadly in communities. And there’s some big challenges there as well. It’s not a matter of surveillance, I think that’s another important thing to clarify here. That this isn’t about dragnet surveillance, that’s not the way that these cases begin. Social media activity that threat assessment teams will look at in that specific case, it’s almost impossible not to do that in the age we’re living in now in terms of developing a picture – a more holistic picture of what’s going on with a person and looking for warning behaviors and warning signs. But when you get more broadly into the question of community, I think the answer lies more with the way that this relates to other forms of community based violence prevention that have been shown to be effective. Evidence based approaches to intervening with people who are concerning, who may be involved in gang violence, or who are in situations where there is an escalated – – risk of gunfire whether it’s by community, or by behavior. And these programs that seek to go in and help people to address the problems that are driving it (ph), right? Whether it’s socioeconomic, whether it’s employment related – this is – I came to see this really as an additive solution, an additional tool that can be used to address the gun violence problem. I think you’re pointing to a number of other issues that are very important, that exacerbate it. But I feel that we really need to come at this every way we can to solve it, because the debate that we’re perpetually stuck in about gun regulations, we’ve seen where that goes over years and even decades. The fact remains we have an enormous gun violence problem and a vast quantity of guns in this country. That isn’t going to change broadly anytime soon. So therefore, for me the question became what more can we do? And I think these forms of violence prevention work have promise.

MARTIN: It just seems to me that we are living in two different worlds. I mean, there’s the world that says that the more guns the more safe, and on the other side of it people who feel that there (ph) are just too many guns in circulation in this society and that something has to be sort of done about it. Is there any – does your reporting indicate that there’s any point of agreement between these groups?

FOLLMAN: Well, I think – you know, all the familiar arguments we have about those issues, we will see those continue to be repeated. However, there are more specific policies that have developed that I think there is more roof for agreement on. And one of them intersects very directly with the method of threat assessment, what’s known now as so-called red flag laws. It is a policy to remove firearms through a court process from people are thought to be a danger to themselves or to others. And this is a policy that’s grown rapidly in recent years. It’s now in 19 states, I believe, and it has strong bipartisan support in most cases. And so this is, I think, a promising example of where we can find more consensus on gun regulation that also intersects with prevention work in a potentially very effective way. Because when you talk about threat assessment cases you’re talking about needing tools for intervention when someone is turning dangerous. And if they have a firearm, or access to a firearm what can you do about it? Historically there were not a whole lot of legal tools, and this is a relatively new one that in fact has spread in the wake of a mass shooting. California put this in place shortly after the 2014 mass shooting in Santa Barbara because there were behavioral warning signs in that case, and questions about why wasn’t there intervention with this individual? And it’s now spread to other states, I think with similar intent. So that, I think, is a good example of how we can move forward and can find progress on the fierce debate we have over guns and gun politics. And I try to really advocate against the idea that we should be resigned to nothing ever changing. I think that’s another myth that we have about this problem. There has been lots of change, and there’s potential for more.

MARTIN: Mark Follman, thank you so much for talking with us.

FOLLMAN: Thanks so much, it’s great to talk with you, Michel.