Killing Mad

March 12, 2009 / 12:20 pm • By Dr. Melissa Clouthier

Most people who make it to adulthood have been hurt or harmed by another human being. Some have been hurt by the very one who should defend and protect them like parents, teachers, ministers. That’s a horrible sort of betrayal. And yet, most people don’t make a list, add to it yearly and finally, load up on ammo and guns and go mow down everyone–”offenders” and innocents included.

How mad do you have to be to go on such a killing spree? Killing mad. Like this guy:

McLendon began his killing spree a dozen miles from Samson in Kinston in Coffee County, where he burned down the home he shared with his mother, killing her. It ended about an hour later with him taking his own life after a shootout with police in nearby Geneva at Reliable Metals, where he worked until 2003.

In between, he gunned down four relatives and the wife and 18-month-old daughter of a local sheriff’s deputy on a wide front porch that looks like so many others in Samson. He then turned his gun next door and killed his 74-year-old grandmother and sent panicked bystanders fleeing and ducking behind cars.

McLendon then drove off, spraying bullets through the town lined with old brick buildings, killing three more bystanders.

Once again, the murderer was a quiet guy, had few friends, .. same old story. Basically, a guy with limited social skills but high enough intelligence who focused on all the wrongs against him instead of all the good things in his life.

He took the easy road, really. What’s amazing is that more people don’t take it.

Rather than channel his discontent, hurt feelings and sorrow into something productive (like every miserable artist and most working people) he nursed the hurt and sense of injustice and it bloomed into murder.

Everyone could choose to be this guy. It’s easy to be a terrorist or bank robber or thief or rapist. It’s all about giving in to the basest instincts most people have but suppress. It’s all about externalizing blame and not owning what power the individual does possess.

That most people don’t choose to melt down is what is far more interesting and far less noted. Why do you think people avoid revenge or criminal behavior?


The biggest reason people are good is because…..
They are afraid of negative consequences like death or jail
Their religious beliefs

  
pollcode.com free polls

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  • http://blog.etee2k.net EdT.

    I would say that your question, and the poll’s question, aren’t the same. I suspect most people avoid going on killing sprees because they still feel some level of hope – hope that things *will* get better, that they can get out of the situation, that they can get “revenge” through some other means, etc. I suspect that those who go on killing sprees, OTOH, have lost hope – they simply want whatever is happening TO STOP, and feel that for whatever reason this is the only way to ensure that outcome.

    As to why people are *good* – that is a whole ‘nuther can o’ worms.

    ~EdT.

  • Chalmers

    I don’t think the poll is reflective of the story.

    People who give up hope eat the barrel of a shotgun.

    People who are angry and feed that anger until it boils over go on killing sprees. These people lash out sometimes at the people that “hurt” them, sometimes at symbols for the things that “hurt” them and sometimes randomly.

    What stops most people from doing these things? Ties. Family ties, work ties, church ties, community ties, etc. Once we completely sever those ties in our minds, then there is no distinction between right and wrong. Whether we or others live or die is of no consequence.

  • http://blog.etee2k.net EdT.

    Chalmers – I think that loss of hope, as well as anger, is a cause for both suicide and mass homicide. I think the difference lies in where the killer is directing this at – if it is inward (at themselves), then they turn the gun at themselves. If it is outward (at others), then that is where the gun points.

    ~EdT.