What do you think causes a person to massacre others? | INFJ Forum

What do you think causes a person to massacre others?

Sriracha

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Jul 14, 2011
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In light of the recent activity in Aurora, Colorado ... this is a part of psychology that I cannot understand. This man (allegedly) did not know any of these victims. It is not like he was bullied by any of them. He booby trapped his apartment so it would kill anyone that walked in. Here are a list of facts on this incident: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/world_news&id=8743134

What is it that causes a person to want to kill others? Yes insanity is an option, but less than 1% of insanity cases win in court. This is well thought out and premeditated.

I just don't get it (and feel fortunate that I don't.) :(
 
A combination of a lack of empathy and being fucking crazy.
 
Interesting fact to be added:

From what I know scientists have found a gene, witch can make a person what is know to be a Psychopath. Studies have shown that mass murderers in general cary this gene. By any means it does not mean that these people will always be killers. One of the specialists in this subject also caries this gene and he is not a murderer. What is known is that mass murderers generally have had a bad childhood, combining the fact that they cary this gene.

When I find supportive information to my post i will show it, probably soon.
 
Becoming increasingly frustrated with all the stupid people in the world. That'll be my answer when I finally snap.
 
Some form of psychosis that allows you to be sane without actually having any semblance of kind feelings or rational thought?
 
Marilyn Mansons and the hippidy-hop.
 
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I don't know *how* someone can do something like that. Usually if empathy would not stop someone from planning a massacre or something of the sort, the legal consequences would probably be more than enough. So I think it is genetic in nature. I've always figured people who commit such crimes are wired differently. I'd like to know, though, if it is possible to teach them otherwise.
It would be interesting to know how the link between the gene and traumatic/abusive childhoods plays out.
 
This is one of the instances where I cannot put myself within the eyes of the perpetrator. Can you? Can you see what is going on?
 
Basically, a series of bad circumstances combined with prolonged aggressive psychosis and a total lack of empathy will do it. This guy was probably insane in a way similar to the Arizona shooter. His parents are probably terrible people as well.
 
Out of three hundred million people in the US, not considering the billions across the rest of the globe, it's reasonable to say the possibility is likely that unusual situations will occur.


Having said that, I believe the more interesting mind will travel; find places that are out of where most will go. Illusion becomes reality.

Maybe there is a gene for a sociopath.
Maybe a person grows up feeling disassociated from things that seem to mean something to others, I.e., you've never really had a friend. Not someone you talked to in home room about homework, but a real friend. So how do you understand, have sympathy, care about it when you are told my friend is dying? How do I care about your friend that is getting divorced, has cancer.

These things don't touch me. I can't relate. Most people can probably stay stable, but it doesn't strike me as weird that some can't.

That guy was smart. That's a problem.
Where does his mind wander to. What kind of day dreaming does he have.

Isolated in your apartment dreaming about the movie, the characters. Does it become real in some way?

It's funny what parts of a person become real. If I put you in a situation, I know you will do things you never considered.

I'm never too surprised when I hear, read about events like this. I don't believe other people are either. I think they are shocked or surprised that someone lost it. I think it makes people wonder what it would take for them to lose it, or if maybe they were a lot closer to it at some point and are a little scared to think it could be them in the news. Just what occurs to me. Could be way off base.
 
Insanity... Extreme Stress/Circumstances/Personal Family/Support Problems ... Most likely a combination to result in such an aggrandized result.
 
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An extreme amount of frustration and dissatisfaction that turns into violence. I believe there is a need to hurt others to relive ones own pain. I don't think psychopathy is always the answer, or a lack of empathy necessarily, at least not in a prolonged sense, temporarily perhaps, but I think these 'random' shootings, regardless of how well planned are essentially outbursts, of lucid (basis of planned execution) anger.

Basically, for some people, when they reach their perceived bottom and feel like they have nothing to lose anymore, they kill themselves, or kill their family, then themselves, or they go on a shooting rampage.


Wow, this makes little sense, even to me. :/
 
If you re talking about "the warrior gene" (a shorter, less active version of a gene allele on the X chromosome known as Monoaminine oxidrase A gene) then it is important to note that those who carry the gene but did not suffer child abuse are actually less likely to be violent than those who do not carry the gene. The gene is found in a majority of violent criminals and a minority of the overall population, but among those who have the gene the violent criminals are the minority and the majority are gentler and more empathetic than the population at large.
 
I used to think that gun ownership was a bad thing and i'd watch documentaries like Michael Moore's 'bowling for columbine' and generally agree with what he was saying, but now i have a totally different perspective on it

I still think it is a horrible tragedy when guns are missused and people get hurt, but guns do serve a function for the american people

Gun ownership provides a balance of power between the american people and their corporation dominated government. For example would the colonialists who created the USA have been able to kick out the oppressive British government if they had not owned guns?

The corporations have bribed their way into power to the point that many politicians are effectively representatives of the corporations. The corporations club together in organisations such as the 'council on foreign relations' and the 'bilderburg club' and they decide what policies they want to 'lobby' the politicians over

Together with the politicians they have formed a 'corporatocracy' and their agenda is basically to make everyone entirely dependant on the corporations. The corporations want to produce all of our: food, medicine, entertainment, clothes, money and media. An example of corporate dominance in these fields would be the monopoly of seeds that monsanto has been given by bribing politicians. Another would be the handing over of public wealth to the failed banks in the form of 'bank bailouts'. Another would be the consolidation of media outlets from many into a handful, all of course corporate owned

In the documentary 'The corporation' an FBI criminal profiler profiles the model of a corporation and decides that it is 'psychopathic' because within the corporate model there is no in built mechanism for empathy, compassion, guilt or regret which is why the corporations will continue to poison the worlds water and chop down its rainforests, because unlike a human a corporation cannot exercise restraint. Its function is not to survive but only to pursue profits even if it means exploiting people and the environment in the process. The increase in government surveillance and controls on the internet is because the corporatocracy want greater control over the public

What the corporations don't want is a public that can stand upto the corporatocracy. This means that somehow they must get the public to give up their guns. They know that the public won't give them up easily so they need to pass laws that outlaw guns. To do this they must make the public accept these laws which means that they must demonise guns.

To acheive this the corporatocracy will use Hegel's principle of 'thesis, antithesis, synthesis', or as David Ike calls it 'problem, reaction, solution'

The corporations will create a problem which will cause an outcry in the population so that the corporations can then offer their solution to the problem that they themselves created.

So they will orchestrate massacres involving guns so that the public develop increasingly bad feelings about guns before the corporations offer their solution which will be new laws banning guns and a gun armistice in which people can hand in any now illegal guns without being prosecuted.

This happened in the UK following a massacre in a school in Dunblane which then saw the government passing laws banning hand guns.

Notice how Obama (the figurehead of the corporatocracy) went to Aurora to make people there sympathetic towards the government? He is playing his part in the plan.

So how many of these massacres and assassinations (or attempts) are genuinly by lone crazed gunmen with no real involvement with their victims and how many are orchestrated by the corporatocracy? I don't know

What i do know is that the experiments by the corporatocracy on mind control have been made public and exposed as fact, see for example:

Operation MKUltra:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_MKULTRA

Project Artichoke:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_ARTICHOKE

and Project Monarch:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Monarch#Project_Monarch

Films such as the 'manchurian candidate' were dealing with the idea of a person who has been traumatised to a state of split personality through which ideas can be implanted into the new personality. Such ideas might include an overwhelming hatred towards a person. These films were made in response to the shootings of many anti-corporatocracy individuals such as: JFK, Bobby kennedy, John Lennon, Martin Luther King, malcolm X etc by 'lone crazed gunmen'

The idea was even used in the comedy 'zoolander'
 
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An INFJ.
 
I think that isolation is probably the biggest factor, combined with powerlessness and a lot of frustration.

If people are constantly rejecting you/casting you out, are afraid to get close to you, ignoring you, pushing you away, etc… then I think that eventually you stop seeing yourself as 'one of them'. I don't think that all isolated people/loners turn psychotic, but I do think that being accepted and understood by other people/having friends is probably one of the most important things you need to stay psychologically stable. Combine isolation with distant/disinterested parents and you basically have absolutely no anchor to society… I really don't think that achievements/intelligence/etc. are worth very much in that case. The fact that his mother wasn't surprised that he did this is telling.

I don't think it's even an altogether irrational response, either… I don't think he was necessarily deluded, even if he didn't fully understand what killing someone is… it's more like he just got to a point where he gave up on everything, and instead of killing himself and quietly fading out of an existence where nobody really knew him anyways, he did this. Now everybody knows him.
 
I think that isolation is probably the biggest factor, combined with powerlessness and a lot of frustration.

If people are constantly rejecting you/casting you out, are afraid to get close to you, ignoring you, pushing you away, etc… then I think that eventually you stop seeing yourself as 'one of them'. I don't think that all isolated people/loners turn psychotic, but I do think that being accepted and understood by other people/having friends is probably one of the most important things you need to stay psychologically stable. Combine isolation with distant/disinterested parents and you basically have absolutely no anchor to society… I really don't think that achievements/intelligence/etc. are worth very much in that case. The fact that his mother wasn't surprised that he did this is telling.

I don't think it's even an altogether irrational response, either… I don't think he was necessarily deluded, even if he didn't fully understand what killing someone is… it's more like he just got to a point where he gave up on everything, and instead of killing himself and quietly fading out of an existence where nobody really knew him anyways, he did this. Now everybody knows him.

I thought something similiar to this just this morning. It's almost a hatred of being invisible, but yet having a vision of grandiosity.


It would be interesting to know his MBTI (not that it really matters ... I'm just trying to get inside his head.)
 
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Hmm. The preparation for the attack was carried out in a proficient manner... but it seems nonsensical.
I don't know what process went on inside this guy.

It is a tragedy though, such things always seem to be no matter where or when they happen.
 
Enjoyment.