NATION HANDGUN POLICY MURDER RATE YEAR
A. Belarus Banned 10.40 late 1990s
[Neighboring countries with gun law and murder rate data available]
Poland Allowed 01.98 2003
Russia Banned 20.54 2002
B. Luxembourg Banned 09.01 2002
[Neighboring countries with gun law and murder rate data available]
Belgium Allowed 01.70 late 1990s
France Allowed 01.65 2003
Germany Allowed 00.93 2003
C. Russia Banned 20.54 2002
[Neighboring countries with gun law and murder rate data available]
Belarus Allowed 10.40 late 1990s
Finland Allowed 01.98 2004
Norway Allowed 00.81 2001
Murder Rates of European Nations that Ban Handguns as Compared to Their Neighbors that Allow Handguns (rates are per 100,000 persons)
The worst mass shootings in the last few years, besides Sandy Hook in 2012, have been outside of the United States in countries with strict gun legislation. In 1996, thirty-five victims were killed in Australia. In 2002, a school shooting in Germany left sixteen dead. In 2008, a mass murderer at a Finnish high school killed ten students. In 2010, a shooter in the United Kingdom left twelve dead. And in 2011, Breivik killed seventy-seven people in Norway. In these and other cases of mass murder worldwide, the massacre might not have been prevented with stricter gun legislation, certainly not a lone wolf killer like Breivik. Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that regulation of guns is not necessary, particularly with regard to mentally disturbed citizens.
TOMOSHIRO KATO: MASS STABBING IN AKHIABARA, JAPAN
On Sunday, June 8, 2008, at a commercial area of Akhiabara, in the district of Chiyoda, Tokyo, Tomoshiro Kato, aged twenty-five, drives a truck at full speed into the crowd and stops. He gets out of the truck armed with a knife and begins stabbing the people around him. Only two minutes later, the police apprehend him, but not before he kills seven people and injures twelve more.
Born and raised in the wealthy area of Aomori, Kato was extremely intelligent. His severe parents demanded that he must be the best and inflicted humiliating punishments when he was anything less. Isolated, he suffered from not having a girlfriend and not fitting in. Kato saw himself as a failure, and when his employment contract came to an end, he unraveled.
Right before his mayhem, he wrote on a website: “I will kill people in Akhiabara. . . . If only I had a girlfriend, I wouldn’t have quit work . . . I wouldn’t have become addicted to my cell phone. Anybody with hope couldn’t possibly understand how I feel . . . I don’t have a single friend and won’t have in the future. I’ll be ignored because I’m ugly. I’m lower than trash because at least trash gets recycled.”
Although he also suffered from isolation, Kato was no lone wolf killer like Breivik. Kato is an example of a depressed rampage mass murderer who didn’t use a handgun, but a truck and a knife. He was only stopped when the police arrived, pointing a gun at him, at which point he surrendered. In 2011 he was sentenced to death.
This example shows us that the defensive use of a gun is—in many cases—the only way to stop a killer.
JARED LEE LOUGHNER: DEMOCRATIC PARTY MEETING MASSACRE, TUCSON, ARIZONA
On January 8, 2011, at 10:10 A.M., Jared Lee Loughner, age twenty-two, opens fire on a crowd at a Safeway supermarket location in Casas Adobes, Tucson, where U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords is holding a constituents’ meeting. Giffords, along with numerous bystanders, is shot from close range. Six people die, and fourteen are injured by gunfire. Giffords, the apparent target of the attack, is shot in the head, critically injured, and barely survives.
Earlier that morning, Loughner went to a Walmart store in the Foothills Mall to purchase ammunition, but he left that store and completed his purchase at a Walmart on North Cortaro Road at 7:28 A.M. He was stopped by Arizona Fish and Game Department officer Alen Edward Forney at 7:34 A.M. for running a red light, but once the officer determined that there were no outstanding warrants for Loughner, he was allowed to proceed to his destination with a warning to drive carefully.
Loughner is a rare case where the mass murderer was tackled by bystanders not using guns to stop him. It was a heroic group effort, while the shooter was trying to reload his gun. Although it was successful in this case, several people were injured in the process.
In the minutes after the shooting, while many of the victims were still being treated, Jared Lee Loughner calmly told the police “I just want you to know that I’m the only person that knew about this.” He refused to answer questions and pled “the Fifth.” In searching Loughner, officers found he was wearing earplugs and carrying two loaded ammunition magazines in his left front pocket. Arrested on site, he was later sentenced to life in prison without parole.
CBS News, on March 27, 2013, reported details from more than 2,700 pages of released police files, which include pictures of Loughner’s weapon, a 9-mm Glock, witness statements, and transcripts of 911 calls.
His mother, Amy Loughner, said he no longer used alcohol and had tested negative for drugs. “My concern was like, meth or something . . . because his behavior and his, was, um, odd,” she said in one of the interviews. Randy Loughner, his father, said he was so concerned, he took away Jared’s shotgun and often disabled his son’s car at night to prevent him from leaving the house. Just hours before the shooting, Randy Loughner said he had tried to confront his son. “He came in and I wanted to talk to him. And he took off,” he said. He was carrying a backpack.
One of the most chilling pieces of evidence is a voicemail, first played by 60 Minutes in January 2011. At 2 A.M., eight hours before the shooting, Loughner left this message for a friend he had not spoken to in nearly a year: “Hey. Hey, it’s Jared. I just want to tell you good times. Peace out. Later.” He also left several rants against the government on MySpace.
The papers also revealed that Loughner did not seek mental-health treatment. When he was expelled from college, his parents were urged to have him evaluated, but they never followed up. Perhaps when he bought his gun, Loughner had no record of mental illness; however, his parents could have removed the shotgun permanently and gotten help for their son.
Loughner is no lone wolf like Breivik, but a rampage killer. He had no ideology other than his own misery due to mental illness. After the shooting, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and underwent forcible psychotropic drug treatments. He was sentenced to life in prison in November 2012.
JAMES EAGAN HOLMES: MOVIE THEATER SHOOTING, AURORA, COLORADO
James Holmes is twenty-four on July 20, 2012, the day of the massacre. Depressed, he wants to go down with a “bang” and take as many people with him as possible. He decides to attack—during a late-night show of Batman—a cinema that has a “no-arms” policy, to make sure no one will prevent him from completing his massacre. The gunman throws two canisters emitting gas or smoke, partially obscuring the audience members’ vision, making their throats and skin itch, and causing eye irritation. He then fires a 12-gauge Remington 870 Express Tactical shotgun, first at the ceiling and then at the audience. He also fires a Smith & Wesson M&P15 semiautomatic rifle with a 100-round drum magazine, which malfunctions after reportedly firing about 30 rounds. He finishes the job with a Glock 22 40-caliber handgun.
Born on December 13, 1987, in San Diego, Holmes was raised in Castroville and San Diego, California, with his sister. His mother is a registered nurse and his father a mathematician and scientist with degrees from Stanford, UCLA, and Berkeley. A seemingly normal child, Holmes played soccer and ran cross-country in high school, and attended a local Lutheran church with his family. Graduating from Westview High School in San Diego in 2006, Holmes attended the University of California, Riverside (UCR) and, in 2010, received his undergraduate degree in neuroscience with the highest honors.
Intelligent, he was a member of several honor societies, including Phi Beta Kappa and Golden Key. According to a UCR recommendation letter
submitted to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Holmes graduated in the top one percentile of his class with a 3.949 GPA. The UCR letter also described Holmes as “a very effective group leader” and a person who “takes an active role in his education, and brings a great amount of intellectual and emotional maturity into the classroom.”
In 2008, Holmes worked as a counselor at a residential summer camp in Glendale, California, that catered to disadvantaged children aged seven to fourteen. There he was responsible for ten children and had no disciplinary problems. In June 2011, Holmes enrolled as a Ph.D. student in neuroscience at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora. He received a $21,600 grant from the National Institute of Health, according to agency records, which was disbursed in installments from July 2011 to June 2012. Holmes also received a $5,000 stipend from the University of Colorado, Denver.
In 2012, his academic performance declined, and he scored poorly on his exams in the spring. Although the university didn’t plan to expel him, Holmes was in the process of withdrawing from the university. Three days after failing a key oral exam at the university in early June 2012, Holmes dropped out of his studies without further explanation. At the time of his arrest, he gave his occupation as “laborer.”
He killed twelve people and injured fifty-eight, and the police arrived after only ninety seconds. Chances are that he could have been stopped by a civilian carrying a concealed handgun, which certainly would have limited the number of victims. When the police arrived, Holmes had already left the building. He was apprehended without any resistance in the parking lot. Two weeks prior to the shooting, Holmes sent a text message asking a graduate student if they had heard of the disorder dysphoric mania, and warning the student to stay away from him “because I am bad news.”
All the weapons Holmes used in the massacre were bought legally in May and June 2012, and background checks were performed. With no criminal record, Holmes had no trouble buying 3,000 rounds of ammunition for the pistols, 3,000 rounds for the M&P15, and 350 shells for the shotgun over the Internet. On July 2, he placed an order for a Blackhawk Urban Assault Vest, two magazine holders, and a knife at an online retailer. Also in this case, a required mental checkup might have prevented the rampage.
On June 25, less than a month before the shooting, Holmes e-mailed an application to join a gun club in Byers, Colorado. The owner, Glenn Rotkovich, called him several times throughout the following days to invite him to a mandatory orientation, but could only reach his answering machine. Due to the nature of Holmes’s voicemail, which he described as “bizarre, freaky . . . guttural, spoken with a deep voice, incoherent and rambling,” Rotkovich instructed his staff to inform him if Holmes showed up, though Holmes never appeared at the gun range, nor did he call again.
“In hindsight, looking back—and if I’d seen the movies—maybe I’d say it was like the Joker—I would have gotten the Joker out of it. . . . It was like somebody was trying to be as weird as possible,” Rotkovich said. Holmes was a big fan of superheroes, including Batman, and his apartment was decorated with Batman paraphernalia.
Because of disputes over Holmes’s mental state, the trial was postponed until January 2015. In May 2015, two court-appointed psychiatrists deemed Holmes mentally ill but legally sane. Both experts diagnosed him with schizotypal personality disorder. On June 9, three of the jurors were dismissed for leaking reports to the press and the trial came to a standstill. Holmes’s childhood and teen years differ from Breivik’s in that he seemed to function well. His problems and mental issues began later. A depressed and mentally ill rampage killer, Holmes had more in common with Loughner and Lanza than with Breivik.
ADAM LANZA: SANDY HOOK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SHOOTING
On the day of the Sandy Hook massacre, Adam Lanza, dressed in black clothing and olive green utility vest, wearing earplugs, and carrying ammunition for his rifle, heads out to his old elementary school. Lanza shoots his way through a glass door and enters the school at 9:35 A.M. He stops shooting between 9:46 and 9:49 A.M. after firing 154 rounds with his mother’s Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle. The shooting lasts less than fifteen minutes.
Born on April 22, 1992, Lanza lived with his mother in Sandy Hook, Newtown, five miles from the elementary school he himself had attended as a child and where the massacre took place on December 14, 2012. He did not have a criminal record; however, he did have mental issues and was described by his father as a “weird” child. Students and teachers who knew him in high school described Lanza as “intelligent, but nervous and fidgety.” He avoided attracting attention and was uncomfortable socializing, and therefore had no close friends in school.
According to an article by Andrew Solomon in the New Yorker on March 17, 2014, Lanza was diagnosed with sensory-integration disorder as a child, and also underwent speech therapy and occupational therapy in kindergarten and first grade. Teachers were told to watch for seizures. Later, Lanza would be diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism. In 2001, his parents separated, and Lanza was left in the care of his mother.
According to his father, Lanza was a fan of Ron Paul and liked to argue economic theory. He became fascinated with guns and with World War II, and showed an interest in joining the military. But he never talked about mass murder, his father said, and he wasn’t violent at school. He seldom revealed his emotions, but had a sharp sense of humor.
When Lanza started middle school, his parents’ worry increased. “It was crystal clear something was wrong,” his father told Solomon. “The social awkwardness, the uncomfortable anxiety, unable to sleep, stress, unable to concentrate, having a hard time learning, the awkward walk, reduced eye contact. You could see the changes occurring.”
Although Breivik didn’t have the mental issues Lanza had, there are still similarities. Michael Stone, a psychiatrist who studies mass murder, said that, as children grow up and tasks become more difficult, what seems like a minor impairment becomes major. “They’re a little weird in school. They don’t have friends. They do not get picked for the baseball team,” he said. “But, as they get to the age when kids begin to date and find partners, they can’t. So the sense of deficit, which was minor in grade school, and getting to be a little bit more in junior high, now becomes very acute.” He added that, without the brain getting worse, “life challenges nudge them in the direction of being sicker.”
After realizing he had been spotted by a pair of police officers who had entered the building, Lanza fled from their sight, then shot himself in the head with a Glock 10-mm handgun. He died immediately. In addition to these guns, the police found a 9-mm SIG Sauer P226 handgun, and an Izhmash Saiga-12 combat shotgun in Lanza’s car outside the school.
He was fascinated by Breivik and other mass murderers, according to the police investigations. His mother, Nancy Lanza, was described by her sister-in-law as a “gun enthusiast who owned at least a dozen firearms.” She often took her two sons to a local shooting range and taught them how to shoot.
Lanza’s super-suicide took the war on guns to a new level. The most devastating massacre yet, involving twenty children, it could have been stopped sooner had there been an armed security officer inside the school building or his mother had been more responsible with her weapons, given that she had a documented mentally ill child at home.
SEUNG-HUI CHO: THE VIRGINIA TECH MASSACRE
On March 22, 2007, Seung-Hui Cho purchases two 10-round magazines for the Walther P22 pistol through eBay from Elk Ridge Shooting Supplies in Idaho. Based on a preliminary computer forensics examination of Cho’s eBay purchase records, investigators suspected that Cho may have purchased an additional 10-round magazine on March 23, 2007 from another eBay seller of gun accessories. Cho also buys jacketed hollow-point bullets—the same type Breivik used—which result in more tissue damage than full metal jacket bullets against unarmored targets by expanding upon entering soft tissue.
Thirty-two people died on that day, and seventeen were injured.
Unlike Breivik, Cho had a history of mental issues. Some members of his family, who remained in South Korea, had concerns about his behavior during his early childhood. According to Cho’s uncle, Cho “didn’t say much and did not mix with other children.” Cho’s maternal great-aunt, Kim Yang-Soon, described Cho as “cold” and a cause of family concern from as young as eight years old. He was otherwise considered “well-behaved,” readily obeying verbal commands and cues.
Influenced by the Columbine massacre, Seung-Hui Cho wanted to commit a super-suicide. There are obvious signs of attachment issues, blaming others for his misery, and wanting to leave a message of justification.
During February and March 2007, Cho began purchasing the weapons he later used during the killings. His first handgun, a .22-caliber Walther P22 semiautomatic pistol, he bought online from TGSCOM Inc., a federally licensed firearms dealer based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. TGSCOM shipped the Walther P22 to JND Pawnbrokers in Blacksburg, Virginia, where Cho completed the legally required background check for the purchase transaction and took possession of the handgun. Cho bought a second handgun, a 9-mm Glock semiautomatic pistol, on March 13, 2007 from Roanoke Firearms, a licensed gun dealer located in Roanoke, Virginia.
The Mystery of the Lone Wolf Killer Page 27
