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Chapter 1: What drives a person to commit mass murder?
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There's a small township not far from Dunedin called Aramoana. And a man went out and started shooting people, killed a number of people, shot dead the local constable who came to try and stop him.
The year is 1990. We're in the seaside town of Aramoana near Dunedin in New Zealand.
My family, we lived three, four kilometers from where the massacre took place.
And this is Professor Paul Mullen, a now-retired forensic psychiatrist.
So the first thing we knew was the sound of gunfire. And it's outside of the city. People shooting rabbits is not all that uncommon. But it was quite clear the guns being used were not rabbit shooting guns. This was a military semi-automatic that was being fired. And I got a phone call from the hospital not long afterwards to tell me there was an incident at Aramoana.
And the incident was this. A 33-year-old unemployed local man had gone on a rampage after an argument with a neighbor. He shot and killed 13 people before being shot and killed by police himself.
And I had a patient at the time, a lovely woman, very bright, young woman. And she was the next-door neighbor of this man. And for some months, she'd been telling me about this man. She was probably the only person he spoke to. And she was worried about him, and she somehow wanted to get him treatment.
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Chapter 2: How do patterns of violence emerge from mass killings?
Right. What were some of those red flags that you now recognize were red flags?
First of all, the change in him. He'd been a sort of vaguely left alternative lifestyler. He'd become angry, right-wing ideas. The guns had become a big part of him, and she also worried about him possibly being depressed and suicidal. So all of that now would ring lots of bells. At the time, it didn't ring any. We didn't know about these things.
This was Paul Mullen's first brush with the lone actor mass killer. And it would be the start of a long career studying people who commit mass murder on their own. Paul is the author of Running Amok, an investigation of what drives someone to do the unthinkable.
It's about the psychology of those who go out into the streets, armed with guns usually, and kill as many people as they can, expecting to die among their victims.
And today, I'm speaking to him about some of the patterns that become clear over a life study of mass killers.
These people are full of anger and resentment.
And the actions, big and small, that we can take to prevent mass killings from happening in the first place.
Never at any stage name them. It matters because of the next one down the line. Who's watching what you're doing? He's seeing yet another mass killer become world famous.
I'm Sana Khadar, and from ABC Radio National, this is All in the Mind. Today, from incels to disgruntled former employees to sometimes terrorists, we go inside the mind of a lone actor mass killer, and we find out the broader social history of this particular kind of violence. The phrase running amok refers to behavior that is wild and uncontrolled and dangerous.
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Chapter 3: What role does isolation play in the psychology of mass killers?
And it seemed that it was a form of suicide. Well, in fact, it was a form of suicide. Why did they choose this form of suicide? Well, then they were killed rather than having to kill themselves, which was, of course, taboo for a Muslim nation. But the other thing is that the people who went in for this kind of suicide thought it would restore their prestige.
They were almost all young men who felt that they had been ignored, humiliated, looked down upon. So it was their way of saying, I am powerful, I'm not to be ignored, and then to be killed.
Paul says the authorities eventually cottoned on to this, and they developed a system for trying to ensure these people were captured rather than killed. And when they were captured, they were put into mental institutions.
Now, in Malaya, at that time, to be put into a mental hospital was a shame of the whole family. So far from being a glorious death, they had this humiliating outcome. Was it effective? Yes. Extraordinarily effective. It almost died out completely over a period of about 10 years.
So that's where the term running amok or running amuck comes from. And Paul says what was playing out was essentially a cultural script where this taboo against suicide led certain people to act in this uniquely violent way. And by denying them death, that cultural script was disrupted.
Exactly right. I mean, it wasn't confined, in fact, to Malaya, but it was most intense there. There were other parts of so-called Far East, from the Europeans' point of view, where it occurred occasionally. But there, it really was embedded into the culture.
Professor Paul Mullen says the first case we know of in the West of this kind of violence didn't happen until 1913 in Germany.
There was a schoolteacher. He had quite a lot of personal problems. He killed his wife and children, and then he shot and killed several people, but a couple of them ran at him, disarmed him, and he went to trial, was found insane.
And then, more than a decade later, it happened again in Melbourne, in a case that's referred to as the Botanic Gardens Massacre.
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Chapter 4: How does fame influence the motivations of lone mass killers?
There was another one in New York after the Second World War. But if you keep fast-forwarding the timeline to the last 30, 40 years, these kinds of lone-actor mass killings have become far too common in the headlines.
For Australians, it's the Port Arthur massacre which stands out.
At least 32 people lie dead in the historic tourist reserve in Tasmania this morning.
In America, there's almost too many to mention, but I suppose the massacre at Columbine was probably the one that would immediately jump to mind. As a result of two boys' teenage rage, 25 feared dead. And, of course, in Britain, in Scotland, it would be the Dunblane massacre.
He shot and killed a teacher and 15 first-grade children. He then killed himself with one child, dying later in hospital.
So it spread round the world.
But Paul says there is one event that's responsible for accelerating this modern trend. And it happened at the University of Texas in 1966, when a man went to the top of the tower on the campus there and began shooting people. He eventually killed 14 before being shot and killed himself. But what made this case stand out is it was the first to receive wide-scale publicity.
It was covered in major papers across the U.S., and it was eventually turned into a film as well.
So it's the first time someone had committed one of these massacres and they became famous. And within literally a couple of months, another one of these massacres occurred. And the person wrote that he was seeking to replicate the Texas massacre. This is where it all starts. This is where it begins to become a part of our culture.
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Chapter 5: What are the red flags that indicate a potential mass killer?
Not entirely, for most. You can separate them a little. I mean, for a while, there was a spate of workplace killings in America, which were motivated somewhat differently. And now, of course, we have the problem of distinguishing between those motivated by terrorism and those motivated by the, if you like, the resentment and the rage and the desire for suicide.
and for fame, which characterizes, as it were, the main group.
Can you tease apart those differences a little bit more? What separates terrorism from some of these things? Because I imagine there's a lot of overlap as well.
There is. A good case to examine for this, there was a major in the medical corps in Texas, back to Texas again, who, his history was interesting. He was the child of, he was born in America.
I think I know exactly who you're talking about. I don't remember his name, but he was a Muslim man, wasn't he?
I'm not going to mention his name. I don't mention their name ever. Yes, he was a Muslim. He was in the medical corps. And just what he did first, then we'll go back to why, he went out one day and he began shooting other people. Military personnel kept on shooting until he himself was shot down. He didn't actually die.
They kept him alive, and he went to trial, and at trial he said this was for jihad, that he was acting against America as part of jihad. Okay, let's go back to this man's history. So on the face of it, it was a terrorist attack.
But he was also a bit of a misfit, right?
He never took up the housing within the base, but lived in rather poor accommodation in nearby town. He had nothing to do, really, with other doctors. He did not join in any social activities with other military, nor did he join in any social activities outside.
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Chapter 6: How can we prevent future mass killings?
He did go to the mosque occasionally. He wasn't a regular attender at the mosque for many years, but he would go to the mosque.
And then, at a certain point, this man was meant to be transferred to Afghanistan. But he didn't want to go. And that's partly what brought things to a head.
He felt he just couldn't face going to Afghanistan. He blamed the army for not recognizing his gifts. and he decided that he would strike back and become famous. Now, it's a real mixture there. Yes, on the first glance, it just looks like terrorism.
But then when you go into his psychology and you go into his personal history, he starts to look more and more like, say, the Port Arthur killer or the Dunblane killer or any of the other ones like that.
In which way?
He was isolated, he was resentful, he believed he'd been mistreated, he believed that people didn't recognise how great he was. He was almost certainly depressed, which is always a bit difficult. And he was suicidal. There's no question he was suicidal. So you have much more of the, if one wants to call it, your standard mass shooter rather than a terrorist.
But on the other hand, there were elements that made it perfectly reasonable for people to consider him a terrorist. And these things overlap. Normally, it's quite easy to separate the terrorists from the other types of mass killer. But in his case, both elements are there.
And interestingly, prosecutors opted not to bring terrorism charges against this person. Instead, in 2013, he was convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder. He was given the death penalty. You're listening to All in the Mind from ABC Radio National. I'm Sana Khadar.
Professor Paul Mullen is the author of the book Running Amok, Inside the Mind of a Lone Mass Killer. And as a forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Mullen has assessed and managed many lone actor mass killers, including the Port Arthur killer.
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Chapter 7: What cultural scripts contribute to the phenomenon of mass killing?
And so in general, when you're talking about lone actor mass killers, do you conceptualize it as something separate to terrorism? Or is terrorism one example of... Well, it can.
Terrorism can be one example. So if you look at the behavior, they look the same. Someone goes into a public place, kills as many people as they can with a gun, with a lorry. with a knife, et cetera, and then is killed among the victims. So it looks much the same. The big difference is that terrorists are part of groups. They are not the isolated and friendless of the world.
They are not the people who are full of resentment at how they're treated. They're full of resentment at how whatever group they identify with, right-wing groups, males who are so badly treated by women in the 21st century, or they identify with Muslim groups who they believe are persecuted by the West, with some justification perhaps.
So the first thing about the terrorist is they're almost always part of a group. They almost always plan their attack jointly with other members of the group. They're usually provided with the weapons by other members of the group. So it is a group enterprise, even if it's only one man who goes out to kill and to die. They seek martyrdom. They do not seek personal fame.
They seek to publicize their cause. And as I said, they are very much socialized within their potentially violent set of believers. So in practice, it's usually very easy to tell the difference. But, of course, sometimes it isn't. If you look at the incel killers, which you mentioned earlier, I mean, they're a real problem. Are they terrorists?
Well, exactly. I was about to go there. I'm like, what about those guys? Because they are part of a group in a sense. Absolutely they are. They are often chatting to each other online and inspired by each other. But, you know, I don't think they're necessarily getting weapons from each other kind of thing to go out.
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Chapter 8: Why is it important to deny mass killers the fame they seek?
No.
And they plan it themselves rather than usually planning it jointly. They have some of the characteristics of the other, the more common mass killers. They're full of resentment and anger. They feel their life has become intolerable, so they're seeking suicide. But they're also seeking martyrdom because they believe, you know, they will forward the cause of male dominance.
as if anyone needs to forward that particular cause, sadly. So, again, they have a touch of the terrorist and a touch of what I would call the standard mass killer.
And why is it worthwhile understanding these differences? Because the end result is still many people dead. Why should we be interested and know the differences here? How does that help?
I don't know that knowing the difference it is. What we want to know is enough about these people to try and prevent it, to cut short this road they're on. So the more we know about them, the more we know what motivates them. the more we know what will make it less appealing for them to commit these crimes, the better. I mean, the focus has been almost entirely on guns.
And to some extent, that can work. Australia is a very good example. I mean, thanks to the Howard government, I wouldn't like to say thanks to many things for the Howard government, but thanks to the Howard government, the response to the Port Arthur massacre was superb in the sense of the gun buyback, but also in the sense that it changed
cultural attitudes in Australia towards the ownership of guns. We were definitely en route to follow the Americans into that kind of gun culture, and it put a stop to that. Mind you, unfortunately, over the intervening years, the gun lobby have chopped and chopped and chopped at the important legislation, so it's getting less and less effective, as we can tell from what happened in Bondi.
Absolutely, yes.
I mean, what in the world was a man... living in urban Sydney, obtaining legal licences to hold six man-killing weapons. I mean, what is that about? It just shows you how far we've drifted. Gun control was a solution in Australia, but it's not a solution in America. Every time there's a mass shooting in America, the purchase of guns goes up.
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