Why Do People Go on Killing Sprees?

Today in class we heard Glenn Beck's worry that today's disenfranchised conservatives will be driven to violent rampages.

BECK: But as I’m listening to him. I’m thinking about the American people that feel disenfranchised right now. That feel like nobody’s hearing their voice. The government isn’t hearing their voice. Even if you call, they don’t listen to you on both sides. If you’re a conservative, you’re called a racist. You want to starve children. O’REILLY: Sure. BECK: Yada yada yada. And every time they do speak out, they’re shut down by political correctness. How do you not have those people turn into that guy?

We wondered at the time what the motivation of the Alabama killer was. Well, mostly it was a family thing, according to a letter he left behind. He killed his mother first, then went for his grandmother, uncle, two cousins (among others).

McLendon, who had spoken about being depressed and dissatisfied with his situation, also made a list of those who had “grieved him and disappointed him,” and wrote in the letter of his plan to take his own life, said the statement, issued late yesterday. The letter also referred to a “family dispute.”

No politics, apparently, although he is described as a "survivalist". So he had plenty of guns and ammo stored up.

But there was another guy last July, Jim David Adkisson, who burst into a church in Knoxville, Tennessee. This one was definitely politically motivated. If you're interested, if you can stomach it, you can read the letter he left behind.

Bill O'Reilly said that guys like Adkisson are sick, and he's right. But in this case, he sounds angry and disenfrachised. The church he went to was his second choice: the people he really wanted to kill were listed in Bernard Goldberg's "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken Is #37)". Now, thousands of people read that book, and they never killed even one person. Still. . .