Coming to terms with mass murder

Re “Why they kill,” Opinion, April 17

There is something disturbing and even contradictory about the conclusion of this article by criminal justice professor James Alan Fox. After defining “mass murder” and enumerating factors that explain the behavior of mass murderers, Fox glibly states that these terrible incidents “are among the sad and tragic prices we pay for the kind of open, modern, democratic society we live in.” One may ask: How high must the price go before we all lose the capacity to pay?

Fox’s conclusion doesn’t support his claim that incidences of this sort have increased dramatically in the U.S. in the last 25 years. He superficially describes certain societal changes and causes of dysfunction. How does one put a price on the human disorders in our country without careful reflection on the root causes?

CHUCK HACKWITH

San Clemente

*

It never fails: Once a tragedy like Virginia Tech or Columbine happens, some busybody with more brains than common sense is going to come forward and regurgitate a few platitudes about “why.” Fox’s article repeats all the common stereotypes about loners, which seems to me unfair to the millions of people who are loners who nonetheless deal with catastrophic events in their lives without killing double-digit numbers of their fellow humans in the process.

Fox also admits that the quarter-century of research he and a colleague have done hasn’t brought them one whit closer to knowing how to stop a massacre before it happens, which makes the study seem prurient and pointless to me.

Also, I find myself disgusted at the reference to this being the worst mass murder in U.S. history. Will the next sicko who does something like this feel compelled to take out at least 34 people to break Seung-hui Cho’s record?

MARK GABRISH CONLAN

San Diego

*

Fox lists five factors common to all mass murderers. There is only one of the five that we can do something about immediately: “access to a weapon powerful enough to satisfy their need for revenge.” I was a gun owner for 45 years, and I can tell you that everyone who has ever owned a gun, especially a handgun, has fantasized about how and when he would use it. For most, those remain fantasies. There are only three reasons for owning a gun: to shoot targets, to shoot animals and to shoot people. One of these is a lot of fun; there is no excuse for the other two. We need to deprive the general public of access.

DARRYL DICKEY

Northridge

*

Fox’s claim that a “change in the potency of weaponry” to semiautomatics is a factor in modern mass killings versus past events is erroneous. For one, the weapon he cites as being used by a mass murderer in New Jersey in 1949, the Luger, is a semiautomatic pistol.

Semiautomatic firearms have been in existence and widely available since the beginning of the 20th century. A professor of criminal justice should know that.

THOMAS OSTER

Oakland