tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/elliot-rodger-10663/articlesElliot Rodger – The Conversation2018-04-27T11:21:56Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/956332018-04-27T11:21:56Z2018-04-27T11:21:56ZIf misogyny was a factor, is Toronto rampage a terrorist act against women?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216579/original/file-20180426-175044-1vs6170.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A group of women pay their respects at a memorial wall dedicated to the victims of the Toronto van attack.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wednesday, April 25, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the days following the horrific van attack in Toronto that left 10 people dead and many injured, police and politicians were careful to avoid describing it as a terrorist act. </p>
<p>But as more details emerge about <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-dark-possible-motive-of-the-toronto-van-attacker-95578">the possible motives</a> of the accused killer, particularly his alleged connection to the misogynist <a href="https://www.vox.com/world/2018/4/25/17277496/incel-toronto-attack-alek-minassian">movement known as incel</a>, could he face charges under Canadian law for gender-based terrorism? Police confirmed Friday that eight of the 10 people killed were women.</p>
<p>“Terrorism” is considered different from ordinary crimes because it endangers national security. As stated in the <a href="http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2010/bcp-pco/CP32-89-4-2010-eng.pdf">report on the Air India incident</a>, “terrorism is an existential threat to Canadian society in a way that murder, assault, robbery and other crimes are not.”</p>
<p>In other words, terrorist acts challenge the shape, content and boundaries of the social order. This is why both Canadian and international law treat terrorism with particular severity.</p>
<h2>Changes after 9/11</h2>
<p>The phenomenon of terrorism is far from new, but there were major reforms to terrorism laws around the world during the first years of the 21st century.</p>
<p>In the aftermath <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks">of the 9/11 attacks</a>, and inspired by amendments to British terrorism legislation enacted the previous year, Canada passed its own <a href="http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/cj-jp/ns-sn/act-loi.html">Anti-Terrorism Act</a>. Responding to the United Nations Security Council’s call for all states to criminalize terrorist activities, the act amended Canada’s Criminal Code, adding a new chapter on terrorism. </p>
<p>These amendments were mainly designed to prevent terrorist acts by expanding the investigatory tools for law enforcement in suspected terrorism cases and adding a set of offences criminalizing elements of the preparatory stages of attacks.</p>
<p>Terrorism, as such, is not a criminal offence in Canada. But participating in the activity of a terrorist group, or facilitating terrorist acts and promoting the commission of terrorist acts, are crimes. </p>
<p>The new Criminal Code provisions also extend to the dissemination of terrorist propaganda; they allow a court to order the removal of speech from the internet. </p>
<p>Ordinary crimes like murder or theft can become terrorist offences when they are committed in connection with terrorist groups or activities. That means that under certain circumstances, “terrorism” is overlaid on top of these charges to increase their severity.</p>
<p>With respect to sentencing, designating ordinary crimes as terrorism is considered an aggravating factor. Significantly, the maximum available sentence for terrorism crimes has been increased to life imprisonment. </p>
<h2>Political, religious or ideological motive</h2>
<p>In Canada, the definition of “terrorist activity” includes acts or omissions committed with two key intentional elements. </p>
<p>First, the accused must have acted with “a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause.” Second, he must have intended to intimidate the “public, or a segment of the public, with regard to its security” or to compel a government or organization “to do or to refrain from doing any act.”</p>
<p>The activity in question must also have violently caused death or serious injury, endangered life or caused a serious risk to public safety (including a segment of the public). Causing serious property damage or interference with, or disruption of, an essential service can also constitute terrorist activity if intended to cause these harms. </p>
<p>The legal approaches to terrorism by different countries diverge on whether a political, religious or ideological — and sometimes racial — motive is required for an offence to be characterized as terrorism.</p>
<p>Canada is joined by the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and Pakistan in including this “motive clause” in its law.</p>
<p>Importantly, the <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archive/ll/highlights.htm">U.S. Patriot Act</a> leaves out a motive requirement, defining terrorism that occurs on American soil as any crime intended to either intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence government policy by means of intimidation or coercion or influence government conduct by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.</p>
<h2>Toronto van attack: Terrorism?</h2>
<p>The arrest of accused van driver Alek Minassian means the Canadian government must decide whether to pursue a terrorism case. </p>
<p>The alleged connection of the Toronto van suspect to “incel” comes in the midst of the #MeToo era, so it’s unsurprising <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/alek-minassian-toronto-attack-incel-movement-misogynist-elliot-rodger-a8321711.html">we’re seeing calls </a> to address this case as one of terrorism. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216582/original/file-20180426-175044-19uvawk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216582/original/file-20180426-175044-19uvawk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216582/original/file-20180426-175044-19uvawk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216582/original/file-20180426-175044-19uvawk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216582/original/file-20180426-175044-19uvawk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216582/original/file-20180426-175044-19uvawk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216582/original/file-20180426-175044-19uvawk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A group of women pay their respects at a memorial wall dedicated to the victims of Monday’s van attack as a portion of Toronto’s Yonge Street re-opens on April 25, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young</span></span>
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<p>These calls have a two-pronged logic.</p>
<p>First, they reiterate the undeniable correlation between misogyny and acts of mass public violence, drawing on a spectrum of ideologies ranging from racism to radical Islam.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/most-mass-killers-are-men-who-have-also-attacked-family-87230">Most mass killers are men who have also attacked family</a>
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<p>Second, they contend that <a href="http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/hilj47&div=6&g_sent=1&casa_token=&collection=journals">violence against women is itself a form of terrorism</a>, constituting nothing less than a daily war against women.</p>
<p>If national laws have been updated to include acts of peacetime terrorism, then surely, the argument goes, these laws should cover mass violence motivated by misogyny.</p>
<p>On its face, a good legal case could be made for construing the charges against the Toronto suspect as terrorist offences if it turns out he was inspired by or acted on behalf of a movement that promotes violence against women. There is nothing in Canadian law limiting terrorism to acts inspired only, for example, by radical religious ideologies.</p>
<p>In fact, in a <a href="https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/pblc-rprt-trrrst-thrt-cnd-2017/index-en.aspx">2017 report on terrorism</a>, the government explicitly recognized the increased threat of right-wing extremism.</p>
<h2>Serious practical considerations</h2>
<p>Many facts are still unclear in the Toronto van case, but Facebook has confirmed that moments before the alleged attack, Minassian posted about the “Incel Rebellion” and lauded Elliot Rodger, who was responsible in 2014 for killing six people in California in the name of a “war on women.”</p>
<p>If the suspect was indeed motivated by this misogyny, and the prosecution can prove other elements of “terrorist activity,” it’s plausible that the charges already laid could be construed as constituting terrorist acts. Minassian is facing 10 counts of first-degree murder and 13 counts of attempted murder.</p>
<p>But there are serious practical considerations limiting the feasibility and added value of such an approach. </p>
<p>Under Canadian law, first-degree murder, defined as planned and deliberate, carries a mandatory life sentence. Any killings that occur during the commission of terror-related acts are elevated to first-degree murder. But Minassian is already charged with first-degree murder and will be sentenced to life if convicted.</p>
<p>Arguing terrorism would also significantly add to the prosecution burden, requiring all the elements of terrorism to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. </p>
<p>Those calling for this case to be treated as terrorism would likely argue that the optics and symbolism of denouncing Minassian’s alleged crimes as terrorism justify this additional evidentiary burden. </p>
<p>But there are serious policy considerations that go against expanding the legal scope of terrorism as a way to combat the very real and disturbing threats posed by dark online movements like incel. </p>
<p>The idea that we should turn to the language of terrorism and the institutions of the criminal law to address misogyny is part of the general punitive approach that has permeated much of the #MeToo discourse. </p>
<p><a href="http://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-look-at-the-way-metoo-stories-are-told">I worry that the logic</a> of #MeToo is likely to result in socially and sexually conservative policy proposals. The punitive urge to talk about the Toronto van attack suspect as a terrorist could be one such dangerous invitation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95633/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heidi Matthews does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The word “terrorism” has not been used officially to describe the Toronto van attack. But if it’s shown the accused was inspired by misogyny, Canadian law allows for terror to be added to murder charges. Should it?Heidi Matthews, Assistant Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/955782018-04-25T17:30:13Z2018-04-25T17:30:13ZThe dark possible motive of the Toronto van attacker<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216301/original/file-20180425-175035-pebsbn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Two students comfort each other during a candlelight vigil held to honour the victims of Elliot Rodger in Isla Vista, Calif., in May 2014. Was Toronto's van attack suspect inspired by Rodger? </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Like other Canadians, I was horrified upon learning of a van attack along Toronto’s famed Yonge Street this week. Struggling to make sense of it, my first question was: “Why?”</p>
<p>As it turns out, the attack was possibly a disturbing reprise of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/elliot-rodgers-killing-spree-what-happened/2014/05/24/207778ec-e3b2-11e3-810f-764fe508b82d_story.html?utm_term=.7d3fbebc3b15">a similar massacre,</a> targeting mostly women and perceptively “sexually active” men in the California community of Isla Vista in May 2014. </p>
<p>Facebook has confirmed that a final pre-attack post of <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/04/25/number-cited-in-cryptic-facebook-post-matches-alek-minassians-military-id-source.html">the suspect in Toronto’s van attack is real,</a> and was a salute to Elliot Rodger. The deranged American misogynist published his manifesto bemoaning his involuntary celibacy prior to his Isla Vista shooting and driving spree that killed six. </p>
<p>I wrote about that case and the earlier, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5978615/George-Sodinis-blog-tells-of-years-of-rejection-by-women-before-gym-shooting.html">lesser-known case of George Sodini</a> in Pennsylvania in 2009 in my recent book, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/551497/murder-in-plain-english-by-michael-arntfield-and-marcel-danesi/9781633882539/"><em>Murder in Plain English</em></a>, and the signs <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/sheriff-calif-shooter-rodger-flew-under-the-radar-when-deputies-visited-him-in-april/2014/05/25/88123026-e3b4-11e3-8dcc-d6b7fede081a_story.html?utm_term=.bf49236673f0">that were missed</a> about Rodger in particular.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216340/original/file-20180425-175044-11fq2c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216340/original/file-20180425-175044-11fq2c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216340/original/file-20180425-175044-11fq2c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216340/original/file-20180425-175044-11fq2c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216340/original/file-20180425-175044-11fq2c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216340/original/file-20180425-175044-11fq2c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216340/original/file-20180425-175044-11fq2c8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The Santa Barbara County Sheriff walks past a board showing the photos of suspected gunman Elliot Rodger and the weapons he used in a May 2014 shooting that left six people dead.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)</span></span>
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<p>Rodger has apparently now become, in a disturbing twist, <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-the-incel-community-and-the-dark-side-of-the-internet/">the martyr for a larger “incel” (short for involuntary celibacy) subculture.</a> He shot and killed himself in his BMW after colliding with a parked car during his rampage. </p>
<p>The Toronto case, as we know, ended differently. Const. Ken Lam was captured on cellphone video arresting the van attack suspect and doing so without firing a shot.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-didnt-he-shoot-the-toronto-cop-who-did-everything-right-95570">Why didn't he shoot? The Toronto cop who did everything right</a>
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<p>This despite having his service weapon drawn, while the suspect pantomimed having a pistol of his own. </p>
<p>In fact, the suspect also announced he had a gun while engaging in what appeared to be a well-rehearsed quick draw involving a mobile device made to look like a handgun, all in a bid to have the officer shoot and kill him. </p>
<p>It’s what <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/suicide-by-cop-a-growing-phenomenon-1.1374212">is often called “suicide by cop”</a> and it’s a preferred ending among some of the odious and cowardly offenders out there, including lone-wolf terrorists. </p>
<h2>Focusing on the motive</h2>
<p>But Lam’s remarkable restraint has instead allowed the media to focus on the real subtext of this horrific rampage — the motive no one saw coming, but one with a series of disturbing antecedents that we all need to pay attention to. </p>
<p>While there has been a movement of late in the media to omit any reference to the name or image of mass murderers when reporting on these events, “incel” requires a conversation because it represents only the latest online movement catering to the disordered and the disaffected.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2018/04/24/incels-hail-toronto-van-driver-who-killed-10-as-a-new-elliot-rodger-talk-of-future-acid-attacks-and-mass-rapes/">Incel has now claimed the suspect in the Toronto van attack</a>, Alek Minassian, as its own. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216335/original/file-20180425-175038-1aq1z5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216335/original/file-20180425-175038-1aq1z5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216335/original/file-20180425-175038-1aq1z5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216335/original/file-20180425-175038-1aq1z5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216335/original/file-20180425-175038-1aq1z5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216335/original/file-20180425-175038-1aq1z5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216335/original/file-20180425-175038-1aq1z5t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">It this April 24, 2018 courtroom sketch, Alek Minassian is seen, second from the left, accused of 10 counts of first-degree murder in a van attack that killed 10 people in Toronto. He’s also facing 13 counts of attempted murder.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Alexandra Newbould</span></span>
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<p>The devotees to this movement include those suffering from what is known as <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/schizoid-personality-disorder">schizoid personality disorder</a>. The biographical details emerging about the Toronto van attack suspect may fit some symptoms of this disorder.</p>
<p>While it sounds like schizophrenia, it’s not. In fact, unlike schizophrenia, schizoids know exactly what they’re doing. It might be best described as the closest thing to clinical misanthropy — a visceral hatred of people — as you can get. </p>
<p>It’s also a personality disorder, not an illness per se; in fact, it’s very rare in clinical settings, or among populations suffering from mental illness.</p>
<h2>Schizoid red flags</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.theravive.com/therapedia/schizoid-personality-disorder-dsm--5-301.20-(f60.1)">As the latest edition of the DSM-5</a>, the definitive text on personality disorders, reveals, along with a review of the literature on schizoids involved in school shootings, some of the disorder’s hallmarks and red flags: </p>
<p>—Disinterested in group or social activities.</p>
<p>—Solitary by nature, in part due to an overriding arrogance, anger at the world and sense of entitlement.</p>
<p>—Takes pleasure in few activities, generally solemn and inactive.</p>
<p>—A dull, cold affect, coupled with indifference to praise or criticism.</p>
<p>—Late onset of of formative life experiences or rites of passage, such as education, obtaining a driver’s licence or job and intimacy.</p>
<p>But while the schizoid is generally averse to sexual activity, we see a <em>preoccupation</em> with sex in a number of noteworthy cases. The objectification of women, an inability to distinguish between sex and real intimacy and a fixation on fantasy in the absence of real-life experiences can all prove to be a dangerous cocktail that fuels new and more violent fantasies. </p>
<p>This is especially the case when, for reasons not fully understood, the schizoid also exhibits <em>psychopathic tendencies</em>. </p>
<p>Many schizoids end up relegated to their parents’ basements and nurture their angry oeuvre as YouTube trolls — the same trolls who, in some unconscious manner, might have at least in part influenced Const. Lam’s decision not to pull the trigger in an otherwise justifiable shooting that day. Others take their anger into the real world. </p>
<h2>Dark corner of the internet</h2>
<p>With Elliot Rodger’s last will and testament published to YouTube before his massacre as a call to action, and his earlier manifesto, <em>My Twisted World</em>, as its script, it seems the incel is only the latest dark corner of the internet.</p>
<p>If ISIL has its soldiers of the calpiphate, we are possibly seeing the next iteration of deadly lone-wolf emissaries in the case of incel. </p>
<p>Const. Lam’s cool and measured apprehension of the Toronto van attack suspect may certainly mark the first occasion on record where a mass murderer purportedly armed with a deadly weapon was taken down with a night stick. </p>
<p>But Lam did more than simply refrain from shooting and using his expandable baton in order to bring about the arrest as he continuously assessed and reassessed the situation. </p>
<p>If the incel speculation about the accused Toronto attacker is true, the constable has left us with a living, breathing suspect who may help us to deepen our understanding of his heinous motives — and perhaps even prevent future such crimes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95578/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Arntfield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Was the suspect in Toronto’s van attack inspired by a misogynist mass killer in the United States?Michael Arntfield, Associate Professor of Criminology & English Literature, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/272502014-05-27T17:05:48Z2014-05-27T17:05:48ZThe private tragedy of living with a mass killer in the family<p>The mounting flowers and candles in Isla Vista mark the mourning of six university students killed in the mass shooting at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and sympathy for the other 13 who were injured. Families who have lost innocent loved ones will never be the same, and neither will Isla Vista. Some of those who witnessed the horror will shake every time they hear a car backfire; the lucky ones who escaped as the bullets flew may wonder why they were saved.</p>
<p>For the parents of Elliot Rodger, a lifelong process of self-scrutiny will also have begun, even though they clearly <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/california-killings-elliot-rodger-was-described-as-polite-and-courteous-during-welfare-check-by-police-9432530.html">made efforts</a> to help their son and warn authorities. </p>
<p>In the two years that my research team spent scouring the history of rampage school shootings across the US, <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Rampage.html?id=iN8TWrl2K2UC">we interviewed</a> the parents and siblings of several juvenile shooters and sought to find those who elected to hide from public view rather than live with the shame that surrounded them. Since then there have been many more killings <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map">of this kind</a>, and the story of the families who loved sons who turned out to be killers is a tragedy of its own kind.</p>
<h2>Missing the signs</h2>
<p>The events that took most parents into the abyss were as mysterious to them as they were to the communities who didn’t see the mounting evidence that something terrible was about to happen. Teenager Michael Carneal, who shot five high school students in a morning prayer group at his high school in West Paducah, Kentucky, in 1997, was known as a joker and a prankster, but <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtyLbrkkRHg">no one thought</a> he was dangerous. Until the eighth grade he had also been a very good student. He had friends whose houses he visited and his parents were known as pillars of the community. </p>
<p>Mitchell Johnson, who was half of a duo who shot up his middle school, killing four students and one teacher a year later, was known to all as the most polite kid in his grade. Two months before <a href="http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/a-boy-killer-speaks/Content?oid=934386">the shooting</a> that put Westside, Arkansas, on the map, his mother received an unsolicited card extolling Johnson’s virtues from a teacher who told his mum she should be proud of her son. Johnson was already seven months into plotting his killing spree. </p>
<p>Young men who know they are spiralling into murderous madness can be very good at concealing the depths of their descent. In Rodger’s case he had been planning his “Day of Retribution” <a href="http://www.news.com.au/world/inside-elliot-rodgers-twisted-world-manifesto-outlines-killers-plans-for-retribution-before-driveby-shooting/story-fndir2ev-1226930461475">for at least a year</a>. They know all too well that they are disturbed, but they are embarrassed about their failures – often involving the opposite sex, but just as frequently focused on rejection by their male peers – and the last thing they want is to be publicly defined as damaged. So they “code switch”, behaving normally and congenially with parents, other adults, authority figures in school, while showing the other side to their peers who, we found, were generally not surprised by the identity of the shooter. They know who did it long before the police arrive.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49574/original/5y4msjpc-1401207188.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49574/original/5y4msjpc-1401207188.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49574/original/5y4msjpc-1401207188.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49574/original/5y4msjpc-1401207188.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49574/original/5y4msjpc-1401207188.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49574/original/5y4msjpc-1401207188.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49574/original/5y4msjpc-1401207188.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Seung-Hui Cho was on the radar.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://roadrover123.deviantart.com/art/Seung-Hui-Cho-Portrait-318894831">RoadRover123</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Parents who know</h2>
<p>There are examples of the opposite though: boys ready to kill whose unravelling is on the radar screens of their parents, teachers, and mental health professionals. This was the case with Rodger, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/seung-hui-chos-mental-health-records-released/story?id=8278195">as it was for</a> Seung-Hui Cho, the shooter at Virginia Tech, and long before them, Kip Kinkel, who killed his parents and then shot up his high school in Springfield, Oregon, in 1998. </p>
<p>Kinkel was one day ahead of involuntary commitment, a notoriously difficult procedure to execute given American legal procedures designed to protect citizens from the arbitrary exercise of state power. Kinkel’s parents tried every conceivable form of treatment. His school expelled him. He was <a href="http://www.schoolshooters.info/PL/Original_Documents_files/Kip%20Kinkel%E2%80%99s%20Trial.pdf">seen by psychologists</a>. Authorities knew he was a danger, at least to himself. But our capacity to take someone in who has actually done nothing wrong other than frighten people is limited.</p>
<h2>A desire to make amends</h2>
<p>How then do parents contend with their own grief, the loss of their son, while coming to terms with who he really was and what he did to the innocent? The answer is that they never do. They are not allowed to by a public that looks for someone to blame. They are expected to express contrition, to <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/03/17/140317fa_fact_solomon?currentPage=all">open their most private experience</a> to scrutiny and they do so willingly in the hope that this will somehow make amends for what they didn’t prevent from happening.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49573/original/c2jwv27q-1401206936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49573/original/c2jwv27q-1401206936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49573/original/c2jwv27q-1401206936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49573/original/c2jwv27q-1401206936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49573/original/c2jwv27q-1401206936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49573/original/c2jwv27q-1401206936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49573/original/c2jwv27q-1401206936.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vigil at Virginia Tech.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nrbelex/471661031/sizes/l">Nrbelex</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These questions are searing enough for the parents of high school shooters. They are undoubtedly worse for the Rodger family, for questions will be raised about why they didn’t keep a tighter leash on a young man with such a long history of emotional problems and psychiatric treatment. But it is precisely his age that made such surveillance problematic. No doubt they were trying to let their 22-year-old learn how to function in adult society, and that requires some degree of autonomy. The same was true for the Virginia Tech shooter. </p>
<p>Trying to find a way to let someone grow up is a struggle for these families. They will be second-guessed about how they made these judgements for the rest of their lives. And they will have to live with the knowledge that someone they loved wreaked the same sorrow that they are experiencing on families who have lost their children. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49455/original/2c49yjr6-1401101128.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49455/original/2c49yjr6-1401101128.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49455/original/2c49yjr6-1401101128.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49455/original/2c49yjr6-1401101128.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49455/original/2c49yjr6-1401101128.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49455/original/2c49yjr6-1401101128.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49455/original/2c49yjr6-1401101128.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Adam Lanza’s mother isn’t seen as ‘innocent’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/15/mass-killings-main/3821897/">USA Today</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If Adam Lanza’s mother had survived, she would have felt the same pain: a toxic combination of grief and ostracism. To this day she is not counted among the innocent dead in Newtown, Connecticut, because she is not regarded as an innocent, but rather a kind of accomplice <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/newtown-families-blame-adam-lanza-mom-raising-murderer-article-1.1531903">for having permitted</a> her disturbed son access to guns. That she too died at his hands seems not to encourage any sympathy in the direction of her family. </p>
<p>The police too will come to feel the pressure of public opprobrium. They will be asked and will ask themselves why they didn’t search Rodger’s apartment; why they accepted his surface conduct when those who knew him well were ringing the alarm bells. Rodger had <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/25/sheriff-mental-health-shortcomings-california-rampage">three contacts</a> with the police. And the rest of us should ask why someone with such a long history of emotional imbalance could get his hands on lethal weapons, why we missed the signals he was sending of his torment and fantasies of revenge, including on YouTube. </p>
<p>The circle of people who come in for scrutiny and deserve sympathy widens at first but then contracts over time, and no small amount of friction emerges in the wake of such a devastating loss. </p>
<p>Richard Martinez, the father of Christopher who died in the Isla Vista attack, is to be applauded for <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2639404/He-lost-son-I-lost-son-common-Father-boy-shot-dead-virgin-killer-wants-meet-director-father-prevent-future-massacres.html">reaching out</a> to Rodger’s father. “He lost his son. I lost my son – we have that in common,” he said.</p>
<p>Two years after the shootings we studied, the pain was still fresh. A figure like Martinez is rare. It will take a strong community to work together to confront the wider problems – beyond personal blame – that lead to such killings.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27250/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katherine Newman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The mounting flowers and candles in Isla Vista mark the mourning of six university students killed in the mass shooting at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and sympathy for the other 13 who…Katherine Newman, Dean of the Krieger School of the Arts and Sciences and Professor of Sociology, Johns Hopkins UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/272052014-05-27T04:19:50Z2014-05-27T04:19:50ZElliot Rodger: when sexual rejection turns deadly<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49479/original/jy7c9mv9-1401153695.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=121%2C121%2C3676%2C2516&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Isla Vista spree killer Elliot Rodger wrote in a chilling 'manifesto' that he was going to kill all the blonde and beautiful girls because they had rejected him sexually.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Michael Nelson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>So far, much of the media response to the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/25/elliot-rodger-suspect-california-mass-murder-shooting-stabbing">spree killing</a> that took place in Isla Vista, California, late last week has focused on the sole perpetrator of the attacks, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger. His rantings, where he eviscerates women and promises retribution, are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQUW3Km01BM&bpctr=1401154560">available on YouTube</a> for the world to see.</p>
<p>Mass shootings are becoming <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/01/09/260980072/mass-shootings-across-u-s-are-on-the-rise">increasingly common</a> in the United States and at a glance they appear to be random acts of violence. In explaining the perpetrator’s act, the media often focuses on the individual’s psychology. References are sometimes made to mental illnesses such as <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/blaming-shootings-on-autism-a-mistake-experts-2014-05-25">Asperger’s syndrome</a> or <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/web-loneliness/201405/the-loneliness-elliot-rodger?quicktabs_5=1">depression</a>, or a <a href="http://radaronline.com/exclusives/2014/05/ucsb-mass-shooter-refused-psychiatric-medicines-parents-in-hiding/">failure</a> to treat these illnesses through medication. </p>
<p>But we continue to miss one crucial, much larger social factor: these crimes are almost always committed by men. What’s more, many of these men are well-spoken, white, educated and many are heterosexual.</p>
<p>Prior to the shootings, Rodger wrote in a chilling <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/225960813/Elliot-Rodger-Santa-Barbara-mass-shooting-suspect-My-Twisted-World-manifesto">“manifesto”</a>, since posted online, that he was going to kill all the blonde and beautiful girls because they had rejected him sexually:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Women have more power in human society than they deserve … There is no creature more evil and depraved than the human female. If I can’t have them, no one will.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Police are examining Rodger’s disturbing online messages, where he spoke about his revenge as retribution for the loneliness and pain he felt because “girls … had never been attracted to me”.</p>
<p>In his writings, Rodger also spoke of years of being bullied. He described himself as a dork who no-one liked and he was jealous of other guys with good looks and blond hair. He also felt physically inferior because he was shorter and less muscular than other guys. </p>
<p>As he became increasingly withdrawn, Rodger’s rage towards women grew:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If I can’t have you girls, I will destroy you … I’ll take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you. You will finally see that I am in truth the superior one, the true alpha male.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Dangerous and narrowing definitions of masculinity are seeping into men’s lives, impacting on how some young men compare themselves with other men and this has negative effects on how they experience life. Rodger’s manifesto read:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There were two groups of cool popular kids … they all seemed so confident and aggressive. I felt so intimidated by them and I hated them for it but I had to increase my standing with them. They were obnoxious jerks and yet somehow it was these boys who all the girls flocked to. They flock to the alpha males … to the boys who appear to have the most power and status.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But no boy or man can ever uphold all requirements of masculinity because masculinity isn’t real. In some men, <a href="http://www.raewynconnell.net/p/masculinities_20.html">hegemonic masculinity</a> generates a sense of wronged entitlement that can lead to violence. Social theorists such as Michael Kimmel <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/19/living/men-guns-violence/">explain</a> this as a process that makes some men routinely feel as there is no other way out other than violence. Kimmel argued this is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…a gendered emotion, a fusion of that humiliating loss of manhood and the moral obligation and entitlement to get it back. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>When feelings such as these aren’t dealt with and when no other option appears available, mass killings and often suicide can result.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49480/original/2vptkxcj-1401154666.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49480/original/2vptkxcj-1401154666.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49480/original/2vptkxcj-1401154666.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49480/original/2vptkxcj-1401154666.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49480/original/2vptkxcj-1401154666.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49480/original/2vptkxcj-1401154666.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49480/original/2vptkxcj-1401154666.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Elliot Rodger’s ‘retribution’ attack killed seven people (including the perpetrator), and left 13 wounded.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Michael Nelson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Rodger clearly articulated a sense of what Kimmel calls “aggrieved entitlement”. In his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/ElliotRodger">videos</a> he made numerous references to his expensive taste, glasses, clothes and car. He couldn’t understand why these powerful attributes weren’t appealing to girls.</p>
<p>A cumulative effect of images and ideas from advertisements, fashion, movies, peers, video games and men’s magazines creates the belief that masculinity must be important and real. Rodger writes extensively about how he became obsessed with feeling inferior. It was only when he was playing video games like Halo that he felt a sense of belonging.</p>
<p>Unrealistic images of idealised sexual bodies (often expressed and reinforced via social media sites such as Facebook) create further problems, generating a population of young people who potentially become identity-focused, insecure and anxious.</p>
<p>With rising pressures on young men <a href="http://gender.stanford.edu/news/2013/perilous-place-where-boys-become-men">to be competitive</a> – both physically and sexually – it isn’t surprising that we are seeing increased violence and brutality by men.</p>
<p>Men are bombarded with sexist and altered media images that portray women as oversexualised, youthful, blonde, slender, beautiful and alluring creatures. This leaves no room for alternative interpretations. As a result, men are trained to objectify women. It can also make some men fear women because men are told by society that they should be able to attract a woman. </p>
<p>When men, like Rodger, don’t get the attention they believe they deserve, they experience rejection as failure. This can lead to social isolation, depression and anger. For Rodger, his sense of failure as a man resulted in increased hatred towards women.</p>
<p>What is alarming is that Rodger is not the only man who experienced feelings of inadequacy and powerlessness around women. Rodger has followers on YouTube and some even agree with his declarations.</p>
<p>Heterosexual masculinity – that a “real” man is muscular, dominant, sexy, authoritative and all women should fall at his feet – limits men’s capacity to live fulfilling and creative lives. Ideas about how a man should act leak into men’s psyches and shape what they think love, sex and romance should look like.</p>
<p>Some men are drowning in ideas of masculinity, leaving them anxious and angry. This stops men like Rodger from seeing women as intelligent equals. Dominant masculinity doesn’t teach men how to deal with deeper emotions, empathise or show vulnerability. </p>
<p>It’s time to provide better tools for young men. Let’s begin by providing healthier and alternative ideas about maleness before more innocent people are hurt or killed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27205/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamilla Rosdahl does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>So far, much of the media response to the spree killing that took place in Isla Vista, California, late last week has focused on the sole perpetrator of the attacks, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger. His rantings…Jamilla Rosdahl, Lecturer in Gender Studies, University of the Sunshine CoastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/271942014-05-26T12:48:13Z2014-05-26T12:48:13ZAsperger’s is an unlikely cause for California killer’s violence<p>The news that Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/25/sheriff-mental-health-shortcomings-california-rampage">confirmed by police</a> as a suspect in the violent rampage which left seven people dead and 13 injured in Isla Vista, southern California, had Asperger’s Disorder – a form of autism – has raised questions about whether the condition was a factor in the man’s horrific actions.</p>
<p>Adam Lanza, the man responsible for the Sandy Hook School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, which left 26 people, including 20 school children, dead in December of 2012 had also been diagnosed with Asperger’s. And in times of tragedy like these, it’s natural to want answers for how such senseless, horrendous acts could happen. It’s also reasonable to question whether Asperger’s was a factor in the violent actions of the two men. Yet, most experts will tell you that people with Asperger’s are rule followers, not rule breakers. </p>
<p>While those on the autism spectrum may not come hardwired with the same levels of social understanding as people without the syndrome, and <a href="http://apt.rcpsych.org/content/16/1/37.full">can be involved</a> in some crime, there is no proven connection between the diagnosis and violent behaviour.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49455/original/2c49yjr6-1401101128.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/49455/original/2c49yjr6-1401101128.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49455/original/2c49yjr6-1401101128.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49455/original/2c49yjr6-1401101128.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49455/original/2c49yjr6-1401101128.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49455/original/2c49yjr6-1401101128.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/49455/original/2c49yjr6-1401101128.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Adam Lanza.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/15/mass-killings-main/3821897/">USA Today</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just like anyone else, those with Asperger’s can have other mental health problems, which could lead to violent behaviour. In Lanza’s case, a final report on the shooting said he had significant mental health issues and Lanza’s father <a href="http://time.com/19957/adam-lanzas-violence-wasnt-typical-of-aspergers/">also said</a> it wasn’t Asperger’s that led his son to mass murder. </p>
<p>Reports suggest that Rodger was also dealing with other mental health issues but without an evaluation of his mental health history, which will surely be a part of the investigation, efforts to analyse these would be speculative. At the same time, anyone who listened to his YouTube diatribes might easily recognise the paranoid thinking and persecutory themes of the alleged gunman, strongly suggesting the presence of mental unbalance. It remains to be seen whether any more <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/the-folly-of-conflating-mental-health-intervention-and-violence-prevention/371577/">could have been done</a> by mental health services and health professionals as Bill Brown, the Santa Barbara county sheriff, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/25/sheriff-mental-health-shortcomings-california-rampage">suggested</a> after previous concerns were raised about Rodger’s behaviour. </p>
<p>Asperger’s is not a form of mental illness – it’s a developmental disorder that impacts a person’s ability to communicate socially and engage in close, meaningful relationships. It can lead to those affected having a difficult time with traditional social skills, like making and keeping friends or having romantic relationships – complaints expressed repeatedly by Rodger in his <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/read-elliot-rodgers-140-page-memoir-manifesto-he-wrote-prior-his-shooting-university-1589868">140-page manifesto</a>. </p>
<p>Those with Asperger’s may also be more prone to bullying and victimisation, particularly during adolescence. Yet, simply having a diagnosis of Asperger’s, and even struggling with peer rejection, would not be a sufficient cause or explanation for acting out in an aggressive way towards others. It’s more likely that significant mental health problems were at the root of these perplexing and terrible acts.</p>
<p>While on the surface it might seem easy to try to blame the violent behaviours of the shooting sprees in California and Connecticut on Asperger’s, it would simply be wrong. The face of Asperger’s is not the face of violence, and to make such a connection would be a misguided effort to find a simple explanation for these two horrifying incidents.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27194/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Laugeson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The news that Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old confirmed by police as a suspect in the violent rampage which left seven people dead and 13 injured in Isla Vista, southern California, had Asperger’s Disorder…Elizabeth Laugeson, Assistant Clinical Professor, University of California, Los AngelesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.