I want to address a few more thoughts from the Newsweek article before I close this interesting but scary and depressing topic. The article quotes numerous “folks in the know” who label mass killers as “paranoid”. I didn’t get that at first, as I have met a few kids I thought might grow up to be like Cho, but I wouldn’t have labeled them as paranoid. Of course, I’m not a p-doc (psychiatrist) either. But I understand more of what they mean now, because the article described “a specific kind of paranoia: a tendency to blame everyone but themselves for their troubles, to believe the world is against them and life is unfair.” I know lots of kids that fit that description.


James Alan Fox, professor of criminal justice at Northeastern University, explains it like this:

"They see others as being responsible for their problems; it's never their fault. That's why when they come to the decision that life isn't worth living, they decide to take others with them. That's who they hold responsible."

I could really relate to the information in this article when it went on to quote yet another professional. Sociologist Jack Levin of Northeastern (who last year gave a lecture at Virginia Tech on mass murderers) addressed how difficult it was to get people like Cho to seek counseling. Levin believes the paranoid individual holds the opinion that they are sane while others are crazy. Levin goes on to say, “They've become so estranged from society, there's nothing you can do short of putting them involuntarily in a psychiatric hospital."


Many of the professionals interviewed agreed that it took a series of real or perceived insults, disappointments and setbacks to create an individual with sufficient pathology to kill many strangers. Simply losing a job or failing a test wasn't enough to trigger such wrath.


When I absorb the information in this article, I come away more convinced than ever that a child who experiences abuse, neglect, trauma and loss; a child who never forms a solid attachment to an adult caregiver; a child who decides the world is against them no matter how many subsequent adults prove trustworthy and loving; AND a child who has the innate, genetic predisposition to be violent—is a child that one should never turn their backs on…

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