Masculinity againA: 99% of these school shooters are male.

All of these explanations for what has occurred have sounded to me like blind groping for an explanation. We are desperate to place a label on the perpetrators who will distance them from us. We want to know what causes this type of behavior. It would feel so comfortable and easy to blame this one on Hitler, the great demon of the late 20th century, or the Internet, the rising monster of the 21st.

The phenomenon of school shootings in the United States is beginning to read like a series of sick Mad Libs. The scripts are nearly identical with shy, victimized loners seizing power over their persecutors through gun violence. Fill in the blank. The perpetrator was a/an (a) goth, (b) overweight student, (c) neo-Nazi. Pick your letter and describe your multiple murder.The Exponent - columns