What kind of person goes on a shooting spree?

Experts in the US have been studying the similarities between people who became mass shooters and even spoke to people who were going to commit mass murder but changed their minds. They found a core of common traits between them.

"Early childhood trauma seems to be the foundation, whether violence in the home, sexual assault, parental suicides, extreme bullying. Then you see the build toward hopelessness, despair, isolation, self-loathing, oftentimes rejection from peers. [Then comes] a really identifiable crisis point where they're acting differently. Sometimes they have previous suicide attempts.

What's different from traditional suicide is that the self-hate turns against a group. They start asking themselves, “Whose fault is this?” Is it a racial group or women or a religious group, or is it my classmates? The hate turns outward. There's also this quest for fame and notoriety.

I don’t think most people realize that these are suicides, in addition to homicides. Mass shooters design these to be their final acts. When you realize this, it completely flips the idea that someone with a gun on the scene is going to deter this. If anything, that's an incentive for these individuals. They are going in to be killed. We have to recognize them as the troubled human being earlier if we want to intervene before they become the 'monster'."