Chuck Shute Podcast
In depth interviews with musicians, comedians, authors, actors, and more! Guests on the show include David Duchovny, Billy Bob Thornton, Mark Normand, Dee Snider, Ann Wilson, Tony Horton, Don Dokken, Jack Carr and many more.
Chuck Shute Podcast
Dr. Peter Langman (psychologist, author, expert on school shooters)
Dr. Peter Langman is a psychologist, author, and expert on school shooters. He has written three books about school shooters and understanding the psychology behind them and the warning signs they give us. In this episode we discuss some of the specific case studies, warning signs, barriers to reporting, prevention and more. Please share this episode if you can. We’re all on duty with this topic.
0:00:00 - Intro
0:00:53 - Becoming a Mass Shooter Expert
0:02:39 - We're All On Duty & Disconnect
0:05:33 - Profile of Murderers
0:06:30 - Psychopathic, Psychotic & Traumatized
0:10:37 - Triggering Events & Older Shooters
0:11:45 - Romantic Failures & Gender Communication
0:13:58 - Damaged Masculinity
0:15:20 - Different Kinds of "Leakage"
0:17:20 - Not Reporting & Not Enough Reach
0:19:20 - Places to Report
0:20:20 - Most Attacks Have Warning Signs
0:22:33 - Attack Related Behaviors
0:27:08 - Violent Media & Ideology
0:29:28 - Lack of Empathy & Columbine Kids
0:31:35 - Friedrich Nietzsche
0:32:58 - Stephen King Book "Rage"
0:33:51 - Injustice Collectors
0:36:14 - Dehumanization & Contempt
0:37:22 - Increased Desire to Fame
0:40:45 - Barriers to Action
0:42:15 - Parents & School Denial
0:44:15 - What Can Schools & Police Do
0:47:00 - Prescription & Street Drugs
0:48:28 - Preventing Attacks
0:50:15 - Potential Attackers Changing Paths
0:51:44 - Arkansas Shooters & Age of Shooters
0:54:28 - Traumatized Shooter Example
0:56:00 - Life of Shooters Afterwards
0:57:53 - Following Up with At Risk Kids
1:01:17 - Rehabilitation, Life Purpose & World Connection
1:05:25 - N.A.M.I.
1:06:22 - Outro
School Shooters Information website:
https://schoolshooters.info
NAMI website:
https://www.nami.org/Home
Chuck Shute website:
http://chuckshute.com
Thanks for Listening & Shute for the Moon!
Hey guys, this is a special episode that is near and dear to my heart because I feel like most Americans, the problem of mass shootings is obviously horrific. And I want solutions. Well, Dr. Peter Lang Minh is on the show today to discuss what we can do, and the warning signs for the mass murderer. So I do want to preface that I don't want to give these shooters more attention. But at the same time, we have to discuss them and know who they are and the different personalities and the different kinds of warning signs that they give us. So please listen to this whole episode and share it if you can. The more people we educate the better chance we have to stop being the problem. Thank you. Please welcome Dr. Peter layman to the show how you doing today?
Dr. Peter Langman:Good. Thanks for having me. Yeah.
Chuck Shute:So obviously, we're here to talk about not very fun subject, but also a very important one. And you, it sounds like you kind of fell into this being the expert on this. This wasn't something that you sought out and studied in school to be a school shooting expert.
Dr. Peter Langman:That's true. You know, I never had any interest in true crime. I was not someone who read books about serial killers, or mass murderers. It, as you said, just kind of crossed paths with me. And this became my career focus.
Chuck Shute:And so it really started after Columbine for you like was it like a week or two later, you had a kid that came across into your practice, and they were doing a threat assessment on because he was going to do a Columbine, and like a week or two later.
Dr. Peter Langman:Yeah, it was just 10 days after Columbine, I was actually working at a psychiatric hospital. And people saw the warning signs, and he had a hit list. So everyone was on high alert that soon after the incident at Columbine. And they saw the warning signs, and they got him to the hospital where I was psychologists doing psychologically vows on kids evaluations.
Chuck Shute:Yeah. So before, I mean, there was some incidents before Columbine, but that was kind of the big one that spurred this like trend of it just seems like every few weeks or whatever, that something like this happens.
Dr. Peter Langman:There had been a lot of school shootings in the 90s that most people don't recall. There were not as large scale for the most part, as Columbine. So Columbine was sort of the landmark event that really brought the phenomenon of school shootings to the nation's consciousness.
Chuck Shute:Yeah. And it's one thing I really liked about, I can't remember if I think it was in the warning signs book where you kept using the phrase, we're all on duty. I really liked that. Because I think for as important as that book is for every, not only school counselor, but I think teacher or school professional to read, really, like you say, We're all on duty, including the kids in the schools, there's some of the best people to report incidents.
Dr. Peter Langman:Absolutely. And if the students are taught to report what they see if they have an anonymous tip line, either in the school district or in the state, if people know what to do when they come across warning signs or safety concerns, we could be preventing a lot more of these incidents. Yeah,
Chuck Shute:I mean, that just because I try to think like, why is this happening? And you know, again, we're not going to get into the whole gun thing. That's a whole legal thing. But I feel like there's kind of a you agree with this. There's a little bit of a disconnect in the world around us right now. I was, I can't remember how I came across this one. But I was thinking about that case, what do you remember Ariel Castro, and he had the three girls that had kidnapped and he was living in the house for 11 years with these girls in his attic. I mean, it's just bizarre to me that nobody saw a sign his kids would come into the house. Like, I feel like we're just disconnected with each other words, when I was a kid, I'm sure when you were a kid as well. You're living in a neighborhood. All the kids go out and play with each other. You're in everybody's house all the time. And and now it just seems like we don't have that.
Dr. Peter Langman:Yeah, you know, I don't know how much that's the case. Every neighborhood is different. I think the main thing though, is, as we're saying, We're all on duty. If we see something out of the ordinary, even if it doesn't look like a potential mass murderer, but something concerns us something seems a little fishy. Sometimes just making one phone call can save people's lives. And I have incidents of that happening that I mentioned in my book warning signs, just to kind of encourage people to step forward and report what they know.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, well, and it's interesting too, even with the most recent, you have all day shooting or whatever. He had messaged some random girl on Instagram with a picture of a gun and said it's going to happen tomorrow. And in my head, I'm just screaming like, Oh my God, he's saying he's gonna and the girl was confused though. She does. She had no clue. That's why I feel like is there are a way for us to train not only school professionals, but but every citizen so that we're all aware of this.
Dr. Peter Langman:I think we all need some basic education about warning signs. Sometimes they're so obvious that people tend to dismiss them thinking they can't be serious. Other times, they're more subtle, so people miss them. So I think we could all use some education around things that have been missed in the past, and what to do if we see them in our own lives.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, well, I think one of the main themes that I picked up from your books was that there is no specific profile. And it's the same one, I just had a serial killer expert on the show. And it was the same thing for serial killers. There is no specific profile, okay, this, these five things. I mean, you talk about, you know, even some of the shooters have been female, which is kind of surprising. They're not all white, the age range goes from 11 to 62. And not all of them are bullied, and not all of them are loners.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right. There's so much diversity among school shooters, that if we think we know what a school shooter looks like, that's really dangerous, because there have been cases where there were warning signs and school officials thought, well, you know, he's popular, he's on this sports team or that team, he's involved in school, he doesn't fit the stereotype of a school shooter. And that's a very dangerous thing. To think that we know what a school shooter looks like.
Chuck Shute:Right? There are there are three types that you kind of define in the book psychopathic, psychotic and traumatized. Can you explain those just briefly, you go, obviously, in the book, you get more examples, but just briefly here for my audience.
Dr. Peter Langman:Sure, the psychopathic school shooter is someone who is profoundly narcissistic. They don't think that things like rules and laws and morality apply to them. Those things put limits on human behavior. And narcissists don't like limits, they want to do whatever they feel like doing. They're also so narcissistic, that they don't have guilt or empathy. If they hurt someone, they don't care. In fact, they may be sadistic and actually enjoy hurting and killing people. So that's something I think that we struggle with just as a society, to comprehend that someone, especially a young person, can just be so dark inside that the idea of hurting and killing people is exciting to them.
Chuck Shute:And a lot of for a lot of those ones, it's the hurting the animals is a warning sign, right? Because I know like some of them like they hurt cats and things.
Dr. Peter Langman:Sometimes animal cruelty is a precursor to violence against people. Yes. So that's the psychopathic, in a nutshell. The psychotic shooter is someone who's having psychotic symptoms, which means hallucinations, most commonly hearing voices, or delusions, most commonly, paranoid delusions that you also see delusions of grandeur, or other bizarre beliefs. So they're not fully in touch with reality. In addition, they may be struggling socially and emotionally, feel very isolated and alienated from other people. And they also tend to have a lot of envy because they look around and it seems like everyone else is happy. Everyone else is normal and enjoying life. But they're suffering, there's something wrong with them, they're often painfully aware that there's something wrong with them. So they may lash out against kids not to pick on them, but kids who are successful and happy kids who are living the life they wish they could live, but can't. So NBN resentment may be a motivation for them.
Chuck Shute:Okay. And then the traumatized that's like when there's physical abuse at home, parents using drugs, sexual abuse, or combination of all those things,
Dr. Peter Langman:right, you know, in contrast to the psychopathic and psychotic shooters, who tend to come from more or less intact and stable homes. The traumatized shooters come from the chronically severe and dysfunctional and violent families. So as you said, there's child abuse, there may be domestic violence, one or both parents are alcoholic or drug addicted, one or both parents have a criminal history, just chronic instability and traumatic experiences.
Chuck Shute:Right. And just and So to clarify, I mean, even if you have one of these personality types, it doesn't mean that you're going to do a mass shooting, but these are just categories of different kinds of how they would have those kinds of symptoms.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right. That's a great point to emphasize that most people who are psychopathic, psychotic or traumatized never kill anybody. So these types, help us understand that not all school shooters are the same, that there's different pathways to becoming a school shooter, but they're not complete explanations because most people in these categories don't become mass killers.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, I was interesting. I think that's kind of a miss A conception of people with mental illness because I know when I worked in a mental hospital for my internship, I thought there was a lot of the people would be, you know, scary and violent, but it's really the opposite. Most of them are scared. They're they're fearful of something of the voices or something that's scaring them.
Dr. Peter Langman:Yes, it's commonly said that people with significant mental illness are much more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators of violence. So we have to be careful not to make a correlation between mental health issues and mass violence.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, one thing I found that was also really interesting, the triggering events, that was something that you mentioned, like where the stuff builds up over time. And then there may be one big trigger event like the life stressors, you know, job financial death of a loved one. But I think with the with the college shooters, that seemed like that was a big thing for them, where they like the one woman was denied tenure, and, or they're having some sort of problem with the with the school, not being able to get in their program, or whatever, it seemed like that was a big one for college shooters,
Dr. Peter Langman:right? When you look at the older school shooters, meaning adults, not juveniles, especially if they have a spouse and children. And we may not think of school shooters as being married with children, but that does happen. The financial issues become paramount. So losing a job not getting tenure. If you get a PhD, and I have a lot of debt and you can't find a job, then the financial stress for a lot of these corporate traders have been a significant factor in their attacks.
Chuck Shute:Yeah. And another one that I that I noticed is a big theme, for a lot of these kids was romantic failures. And so I'm just wondering, like, if we could take a little bit of a tangent here, because I feel like a lot of the problems in our society are related. And I think personally, I think when the whole hashtag me to stuff came out, I think a lot of those problems are caused by lack of communication, boys do not know how to talk to girls. And and also, maybe girls do not know how to react when a boy is, you know, interested in them. So do you feel like maybe some of the issues could be sorted out by by teaching that stuff in schools, like how to interact with the opposite sex like, you know, you like a girl you like a boy? What would you do? What's a proper, you know, appropriate way to deal with those feelings, because every kid has those feelings, but I feel like most of them do not know how to handle it.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right? When you look at the perpetrators of school shootings, romantic failures, and rejections are found almost across the board, that in so many cases, that is a major factor, especially when you're talking about the juvenile shooters, either the inability to have a girlfriend, or a breakup with a girlfriend, chronic inability to ever even get a date, the sexual frustration, the sense that you're failing as a male, all of this can build up. But again, most kids are not going to become violent over it. But if you're already either psychopathic, psychotic or traumatized, you're having lots of life stresses. This is one more thing. Chronic failure or a major breakup could be a triggering event.
Chuck Shute:Right? Because didn't Eric Harris say in his journal that if he had had sex with a girl or if he had gotten a girlfriend, maybe he wouldn't have done that attack?
Dr. Peter Langman:Well, there were a couple of references. One is if he had just gotten more compliments, maybe this wouldn't be necessary. He was that insecure, that desperate for affirmation of his self worth. But he also was trying desperately to at least find a girlfriend or have sex with somebody, even up till very close to the attack that was still a major factor in his life. And as far as we know, he never succeeded.
Chuck Shute:So he died a virgin. Interesting. Yeah, the other you know, because you hear that term, toxic masculinity a lot. You hear that one? Now you use the term that I never heard damaged masculinity that there's some of these guys feel socially, physically and romantically inadequate.
Dr. Peter Langman:Yeah, that's another factor that we see a lot. And there's different manifestations of it. Some of them feel physically inadequate, they're not good athletes, maybe they're uncoordinated. Maybe they're seen as very unattractive for whatever reason. Their failure to have a girlfriend or have sex contributes to that sense of being a damaged male. So there's a lot of things that can go into that. But that sense of being damaged, being inadequate as a male comes up in a lot of perpetrators.
Chuck Shute:And it may be hard to see that because on the outside like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the column combine killers. They were involved in a lot of school activities. And I think one or two of them I think played sports, they got good grades. So on the outside looking in, you may not realize that how inactive what they're feeling right?
Dr. Peter Langman:Right, they might not look like what we would conceive of as a loser. They may be kids with friends, kids involved in school, they get good grades, they may play sports. But inside, there could be a lot going on that no one sees.
Chuck Shute:Okay, so then if we talk about warning signs, you know, you describe a leakage. There's like, implicit, explicit. So that I mean, some of the implicit seams are the exploits, that seems pretty obvious. Like they actually say they're going to shoot people. But the problem is people, like you said earlier that they think it's that don't take them seriously. They think, Oh, they're just kidding, there's no way that they would, would mean that.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right? If we keep in mind how young some of these perpetrators are, that there have been school shooters who have been 1112 13 years old. When you're hearing things like that, from kids that young, of course, their peers are going to think they're just talking big, or trying to sound tough, or whatever. That's why they need to be taught. It may be a joke, he may just be mad and not mean it. But we can take that risk. So even if you hear things that you have trouble taking seriously, just report it, let the professionals investigate. If it's a false alarm, there's no harm done. But if it's not a false alarm, we need to know that.
Chuck Shute:Right. And so when you talk about the harder things, I think, are the implicit so like the example you gave as a one of the kids that I have the power to bring the whole school to its knees and things like you better watch your back and you know who I am and what's going to happen. It's very ambiguous.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right now, if we look at the larger context of some of those comments, then maybe the implied threat becomes clearer. But we don't know that unless someone takes the time to look into it. And they're not going to look into it if no one reports those things. So, again, communication around safety concerns is the essential element.
Chuck Shute:And we would want to err on the side of over reporting rather than under reporting, right?
Dr. Peter Langman:Yes, as I said, there's no harm. If you report something that turns out to be a false alarm. There's potentially tremendous harm if you don't report something. That's a real threat.
Chuck Shute:Yeah. Have you done any research for the people who did not report things that got, you know, threats and heard it, but then didn't report it? I mean, what they must? Do they feel tremendous guilt or remorse for not reporting it. I mean, not that it's their fault, because they didn't know but
Dr. Peter Langman:no, I don't know that anyone's really done follow up interviews in depth with kids who had information that they did not report, or adults who had information, it would be expected, I think that they feel very guilty for not having stepped forward when they could have saved someone's life, but they didn't know it at the time. And again, if no one had taught them how to do that, and provided a mechanism for them, like an anonymous tip line, and then we can blame them. The best we can do is learn from that and do a better job educating people about reporting.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, I mean, I really wish that we had more education. I don't understand that. I'm just learning about your books and who you are. I feel like you should be one of most famous people in the country right now. I am baffled that no more people don't know your name and your books and why you're not all over. I mean, I guess you have been on a lot of the big news channels, but I feel like it should be people should be sick of seeing your face. That's, I feel like, you know, with all the with how much talk of this mass shooting comes on the news, like what it seems like there's not a lot of talk of solutions.
Dr. Peter Langman:But there's a lot of people all over the country, working on not only school safety, but safety across the board and working on threat assessment and teaching people about school safety and other aspects of safety. There's always, there's always so much more to be done. But there's a lot of people doing a lot of great work, but it's not across the board. It's not reaching everyone it needs to reach.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, so because there isn't like a one 800 Number that specifically for this. So where would you recommend people go like for kids? I guess they can go to their school administrators should should people just call the police. What you think you mentioned the one lady that found the journal on a McDonald's parking lot. I assume she went to the police.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right? So who you go to, will be affected by or determined by what you find and where you find it and who you are. If you're just someone in a public setting, finding a journal with threats for a mass attack. The police or local field office of the FBI or Secret Service would be appropriate. Your school student or parent of a school student. Going to the school would be a good first step, though, depending how imminent the attack appears to be and if lost have been broken, you may want to go straight to the police. So if someone's stockpiling guns and bombs, yes, notify the school, but also notify law enforcement?
Chuck Shute:Yeah, for sure. So it's interesting that how many of these shootings had a warning sign? You say most, you know, like a percentage? Because it seems like it's close to 100%.
Dr. Peter Langman:I don't have data that's hard data to gather. And then you have to define what counts as a warning sign how obvious or not obvious? Are we talking? how subtle could it be, and still call it a warning sign. So I don't have data. My impression is with the juvenile shooters, the middle school and high school kids carrying out these attacks, there tends to be a lot of leakage, a long trail of warning signs, with some of the adult perpetrators. They may do a better job of keeping their mouth shut, so to speak, not revealing what they're going to do. But even so, in hindsight, there may be something that someone knew or heard, but it would be harder to see that as a threat of impending violence. So if I had to make a generalization, it would be that with the juvenile shooters, there's a lot of leakage. There's still leakage with the adult shooters, but it tends to be less obvious.
Chuck Shute:Was there any leakage with the Vegas adult shooter?
Dr. Peter Langman:Not that I know, I've looked into that case, I'm not aware that he let anybody know what he was intending to do.
Chuck Shute:Okay, because that's, that's the one I'm thinking of that you didn't you didn't really talk about that one, your book. But all the other ones. The Columbine, there was a leakage. The guy that shot Gabby Giffords here in Arizona, that's a that was a big one. He posted on social media, I'm ready to kill a police officer. And also said I'll see y'all on national TV. So that was there was leakage there. And then I didn't know this one, the James Holmes, the movie theater shooter, he texted a girl and said he wanted to kill people.
Dr. Peter Langman:Yes, that was his plan B, he had a plan A. But if Plan A didn't work out, plan B was to go kill people. And that was in text message to a classmate of his.
Chuck Shute:That's crazy. Wasn't he also at a bar or something the day before and kind of said some there was some leakage at the bar that he had talked to some people, or they just thought he was weird or something
Dr. Peter Langman:bad? I don't know. Okay.
Chuck Shute:Let's go on to so attack related behavior. So some of the things I mean, again, some of these seems so obvious, but selecting victims, or they'll make like a hit list.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right, I hit list is a key piece of evidence. Because it gives you people you need to warn. And it also shows that this is not just some random fantasy that he's got intended people he wants to kill. So the difference between attack related behavior and leakage is leakage is what people say, attack related behaviors, what people do. And the significance of that is, people may say things, they don't mean, it could just be a fantasy or something they're toying with in their head. But once they're engaging in attack related behavior, it's moving from being a fantasy to becoming a reality. So making a hit list is part of it moving towards actually happening.
Chuck Shute:And then they'll plan out where and when they survey the area, and then they they get the weapons. So for the Columbine kids, they have older kids buying guns, and James Hancock showed a gun to the kids at school, so and they were charged with failing to report on that one. Is that
Dr. Peter Langman:correct? Right. In the Hancock case, kids who knew that he had a gun in school and did not report it received some sort of legal consequences.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, because kids are not supposed to bring guns to school. So how do they how do people differentiate? If a kid is just into guns, but he's hunting and he's using them appropriately? Versus if he's, it's more sinister? Like he's gonna plan a school shooting?
Dr. Peter Langman:Well, as I say, in my book, everything has to be looked at in context. So if I could post on social media that his mom and dad got him a hunting rifle for Christmas, that's different than a kid who posts a picture of an AR 15 with some comment like Columbine strikes again. So every reference or photo of a gun is not a warning sign. You have to take it in context, is there a threat to use it against people? Is there evidence that this kid is obsessed with Columbine or talking about when it'd be cool to have a school shooting? You know, sometimes kids have engaged in that kind of talk? So it's not the possession of a gun. It's one is it illegal gun or illegal? And two, is there evidence that If the student is configuring, contemplating or planning an attack,
Chuck Shute:right, because there's all these other factors that play along with it, and the one of them is experimenting with explosives, which, I mean, I guess I played with firecrackers when I was a kid. But I mean, I think when kids make bombs, that is definitely concerning, because that is not that's beyond fireworks.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right? That's getting into, you know, illegal behavior, and potentially very dangerous, illegal behavior. So again, kids may be sneaking some firecrackers and sending them off in a field where no one's around is not of, you know, foreshadowing and attack, kids building explosives. That's different. And a number of school shooters have also built or tried to build bombs that they intended to use in their attack. So that's another aspect of attack related behavior.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, and this is a really good example, you given your book about how this man was having a conversation. And he says he wants to start a race war and kill a bunch of black people at a church and but he was drunk. So then his friend just goes all he was just drunk, and then they dismissed it. And this was that Dylann Roof kid that had the church, historic black church shooting in Charleston. So the lesson there is, I feel like when people are having the drunk talk, I think that might actually be more more real, because I think people let their guard down. Mm hmm.
Dr. Peter Langman:So and that's another case where people had information, get even specified what day of the week would be best to do it. He had even visited the church. So there's all kinds of planning and preparing going on, along with the talk about starting a race war. So again, people knew enough that that could have been prevented if they have spoken up.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, that's so many. It's so frustrating when you look back, of course, hindsight is always 2020. But it's just frustrating when you see all these warning signs. That's that's what I'm trying to do this episode. Try to get this information out here. So So yeah, the other thing is the the mass murderers don't just enjoy violent video games, you say, they become obsessed with these violent video games, movies, entertainment, and the negative role models like Satan and Hitler.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right, many of the shooters find either role models or ideologies that validate what they want to do, at least in their minds. So for example, the two Columbine killers in their senior research papers, one did a paper on Hitler, and the other did a paper on Charles Manson. Now, if students are going to have any role models, it's most likely that to Columbine killers, that you may see some interest in Hitler and the Nazis and Satanism, white supremacy and so on. So whether it's a role model, or an ideology of hatred or supremacy, a lot of the shooters find something to kind of validate their urge to kill.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, I thought this this part was really spooky, where he said, this kid, I don't know how to say this Aaron Ybarra? I think it was he could hear the voices of Eric Harris and the Virginia Tech shooter in his head that's really scary to think about. I mean, what, like how he was hearing that it's interesting,
Dr. Peter Langman:right, and that's where you see the possible influence of psychosis, that he's not just immersing himself in the lives of school shooters, but is experiencing psychotic symptoms related to that.
Chuck Shute:Yeah. And then Adam Lanza, the he Sandy Hook kid had a spreadsheet on 400 murders, and he thought mass murders were cool. And I'm assuming that people knew this, that he had said this to other people.
Dr. Peter Langman:Well, that comment came from a forum, an online forum, focused on Columbine and mass killers in school shooters. So in that context, maybe no one thought anything of it. It was something to the effect of serial killers are lame. Everyone knows that. Yeah, mass killers are the cool kids. But everyone on the forum was interested in mass murders and school shooters. So in that context, no one saw that as a warning sign.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, that's disturbing that but I mean, yeah, I guess there's the interest of because to me, I think the interest is just I don't understand how people could could do this, it but again, it goes back to that they've got that lack of remorse or guilt or the cycle and all these things that there's something else going on in their brains.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right, you know, there's a lack of empathy. And it's different in the different types for the psychopathic shooters. There's just a deficit that just a chronic lack of empathy for the psychotic In the traumatized shooters, they do have a conscience and they do have the ability to experience empathy. But that ability can be overridden by psychotic symptoms, rage, depression, trauma, and so on. So that in that moment, they may lose their empathy. Afterwards, they may feel horrible self loathing and guilt, and some of them become suicidal in prison. You don't see that with the psychopathic shooters.
Chuck Shute:Right? So that's kind of more like with Dylan and Eric, Eric did not probably feel any guilt, but Dylan probably did at the end. And then that's probably why he killed himself or part of the reason,
Dr. Peter Langman:right? Well, Dylan had been suicidal for a long time, if you read his journal, it was focused primarily on depression and suicide, or external was focused primarily on rage, superiority, and killing people.
Chuck Shute:So it's just happens to be that those two became friends because of Dylan went to a different high school, I mean, he could have taken a completely different path. Right?
Dr. Peter Langman:Right. And it's hard to know that we can't know what would have happened if they hadn't met when either of them had carry out an attack on their own. Somehow, they bonded, we don't know who first brought up the idea or how that played out, it seems that Eric, was the leader in the attack. But how he first brought the subject up, no one knows.
Chuck Shute:Right? Well, on that one thing that was also really interesting. So I mean, you have the typical Charles Manson Hitler, Satan and all these people that they would look up to, but Nietzsche, the philosopher, and his, he had this term of like Superman or superior person. That was significant to Eric Harris. And then so subsequently, a lot of the other shooters have cited Nietzsche as an influence.
Dr. Peter Langman:It's hard to know exactly what they see in Nietzsche how much they even know of Nietzsche versus having some superficial knowledge or having come across something. But the idea of being the Superman, the person above the masses, I think, was probably very appealing to several shooters, and Nietzsche also have a book Beyond Good and Evil. And arc wrote, you know, there's no such thing as true good or true evil. Whether he got that from Nietzsche, we don't know. But that would be very appealing to him. Because if there's no good and no evil, there's no limits. There's nothing he can't do.
Chuck Shute:Right? So some of it may just be an interpretation, like, I mean, there's so many different interpretations of the Bible, you see, as well. So some people might even use that as a reason to do this.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right. So we don't know that anyone really was familiar with the work of Nietzsche. But he was cited or at least read to some extent by a handful of perpetrators.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, another. I mean, there's lots of obviously, I'm sure there's a huge list of violent movies and TV shows and video games and books. But one of them was interesting, too, is the Stephen King book rage, because he actually tells the story of a boy going into his algebra class. And that book is actually banned. I could not find it. I mean, I could see it on eBay, you could buy it for like $2,000. But he actually took it off the market. So that's interesting.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right, that book influenced several perpetrators, we have to make a distinction from causing an attack to perhaps influence influencing an attack. But several shooters did read it, apparently were influenced by it and may have shaped how they carried out their attacks such as shooting someone shooting a teacher in class and holding the class hostage and so on. And Stephen King was so horrified by these events. And then somehow he was able to get that off the market.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, well, he Stephen King, you do it every once. But so when we talk about the motive for motivations and justifications, this term, I've never heard this, this is very interesting. Injustice collectors use that term. And these are people who will not forget or forgive any wrongdoings when they believe the other person is responsible. They'll hold grudges throughout their life. So Eric Harris wrote, you might be able to piss off others and have it eventually blow over, but not me. I don't forget people who wronged me. And I think what's also it's interesting, as you point out how trivial these injustices are there, and it's often also because of their own misconduct, like a kid will get suspended, and then he'll hold it against the person who punished him.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right? Well, part of the psychopathic personality is an inability to accept responsibility for their own behavior. So even when they know they did something they shouldn't, they still feel like the victim of injustice when there's consequences because again, they don't really recognize rules, laws and morality. They don't want there to be consequences. They don't think the consequences should apply to them. So even if it's a result of their own behavior, they end up Feeling like the victim, and they're gonna get revenge on the person if possible.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, so it's interesting too, because somehow they'll spin it that they're the victim. But there's a lot of envy and resentment like anger towards rich people, which is interesting because a lot of these kids had pretty good lives. I think one of the Columbine kids had a BMW at a swimming pool in his house, but they hated rich people.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right, that's something you don't see much attention to, is the idea of not just envy of people who may have a girlfriend and they don't. But I found several shooters, who really ranted about financial inequality, but none of them were poor. Which makes it all the more striking. But again, that feels like an injustice to them. Other people have something I don't, that's not fair. I'm going to do something about that.
Chuck Shute:So it's just yeah, it's this like filter that they're seeing the world through that they are the victims. And they have this rage, and then they want to just do this rage on to other people, because they feel like that's not justice.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right? In their minds, they're establishing the balance of justice, that something is out of balance, and they're gonna set it right.
Chuck Shute:And when I think a lot of these shooters, to me see, it's so crazy, because I just go How can you kill another human being and look them in the face. But this is a thing that you talk about with D human humanization. And this is something that the Nazis did, I guess they that's how they could kill so many people, they portrayed the Jews as rats, and you talk about this in your books about how some of these kids would see a camera was the Columbine kid that saw humans as other people as zombies or robots, not humans. And that's why they feel like they can kill it. Like they're playing the video game, and they're shooting the zombies.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right, I came up with the term dehumanization and contempt, because that's something we see a lot of in the writings of school shooters, looking down on other people, taking away their humanity, and then justifying killing them because they're less than human and don't deserve to live for that's a dynamic. That's a language that we see frequently in their writings.
Chuck Shute:So that's a big warning sign for sure. We talked a little bit about the guns, guns, enhancing status, sadistic pleasure, and violence. We talked about that now the fame, because that's that's another thing that I hear a lot of times, oh, they're just doing it because they want to be famous. So is that I think was it there was a quote or something like better to be famous murder than a nobody? Or for a lot of in their eyes? That's a lot of the description of how they look at that kind of thing. Like, because to me, I wouldn't want that stigma of being a murderer. I mean, that's, and I think most people feel that way. But for them, they would rather be famous, and be, you know, hated than be just a nobody.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right? Again, that's a theme that we see frequently in their writings. They feel like they're nobody, they want to be a somebody. They feel like they have nothing going for them. Killing people is an instant way to recognition. And it doesn't matter if it's fame or infamy. They're seeking recognition. They want to make a name for themselves go down in history, whatever it may be. And this is one way to do it.
Chuck Shute:Yeah. So how many? I mean, do you feel like most of them had that desire for fame?
Dr. Peter Langman:I don't know about most again, it's something we see frequently. There's a lot of differences. There's not much we can say that's going to be true of all school shooters. So we always need to keep that in mind. As we said earlier, there's such a diversity among the perpetrators. For some, it's just a local attack, it may be against the principal who suspended them, the teacher who failed them, the girl who dumped them, et cetera. Others want to give it more global significance. And you get into the fame seeking there, but it's not always but we do see that fairly frequently.
Chuck Shute:That does seem to be gaining a lot of steam with the younger generation, like the Tick Tock generation, the Instagram. I mean, everyone's a tick tock star. There's so many young girls that are tick tock and Instagram famous now. And so I think a lot of people are seeking that out. Not necessarily for a skill, but maybe just, you know, they want to be famous for nothing they want they want to be a tick tock or for doing nothing.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right, there is some research that indicates a greater desire for fame in young people now then craft a generation ago. So some people are looking into that. Most people are not going to keel over that. But again, if you're psychopathic, psychotic, traumatized, everything in your life is going wrong. You feel like you're a loser and a nobody. All these factors come together and you want to make a name for yourself. Some of them will end up using them. islands
Chuck Shute:just seems like I think everybody wants recognition, maybe not necessarily fame, but, you know, some sort of recognition for doing something well, if that and that could be. And you mentioned that at the end and your book about solutions and bringing these kids into the school in some way, like reaching out to them, kids who are maybe not involved in sports or activities and finding something that they could like, because I know a lot of these kids really like video games, and some schools have video game clubs now.
Dr. Peter Langman:Where maybe a course on how to create and develop a video game, you know, find something that they're interested in, give them some pro social pathway that allows them to feel good about themselves and move forward with their lives.
Chuck Shute:Okay. So the barriers to action, I think this is a really important one, because we've already mentioned some cases of this were the biggest one, it seems like kids think, or they don't take them seriously. They think they're joking or they're drunk. But what other what other the code of silence Okay, like you talked about that, how kids don't want to be seen as a snitch or a tattletale. So that could be a barrier to reporting.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right? You know, I often hear the phrase, snitches get stitches. In other words, if you snitch on someone, you're gonna get beaten up for it, you know, that can keep kids from coming forward. In the cases I've looked at, I haven't seen that as much as the phenomenon of Pierce's thinking, he would never do that. He's not that type of person. I've been friends with him all my life. He's a good kid, you know, it's what I've seen is more that dismissal or denial, that someone could be a killer. And I think, again, keeping in mind how young a lot of these kids are, and they may be good kids and good students overall, how do we get someone to take it seriously that maybe they're the next mass murderer? That's a big leap?
Chuck Shute:Yeah, for sure. Well, I think just trying to train kids on seeing some of the basic warning signs would be so beneficial if we could do some sort of nationwide assembly or something, you know, something that, you know, kids, maybe they need to get it twice a year, I don't know. But the other thing that's really frustrating, I worked in the schools for 17 years, and I saw a lot of this is not necessarily the kids denying it. But the kids own parents will deny and you mentioned this to you had a boy who had articulated seven different ways to kill people. And the mom was still in denial, she did not think he could be a killer.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right? Her attitude was, he's a nice boy, he would never hurt anyone, he never has hurt anyone. This is just his way of dealing with his anger and frustration. He just has fantasies, he would never do it. And that's possible. She may have been right. But that's a big gamble to take. So you know, in the hospital, we did not want to take that risk. So parents can be your, you know, your greatest support or a barrier to treatment, if they will not follow through and recommendations or do what they could do to keep people safe.
Chuck Shute:Yeah. And then was it the Kip Kinkel, the kid that from Oregon, whose parents were both teachers, and it was like the school was kind of in denial, because oh, you know, that kid is going to be fine. His parents are both teachers, and he's a good kid. And it was like the school administrators didn't want to accept it.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right? So the issue of denial is not just about kids not taking their friends, comment seriously. It could be the kids parents, it could be school personnel. This is why everyone really needs to be educated about warning signs. And the barriers, you know, what might keep us from coming forward.
Chuck Shute:Once it kinkle, the one that the teacher or the counselor raised the concern and the parents took them out of the class or something or change counselors.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right? When a counselor raised a concern, the mother's response was not to take the concern seriously, but to request a different counselor for her son.
Chuck Shute:So frustrating. And then a lot of schools too, I saw this when I worked in the schools as well that a lot of the schools are afraid of upsetting the parent, and they don't want to get sued. And so they don't want to push these kinds of issues when there really is a major concern to be had. Because Because what can you do? Ultimately, if a kid writes something in a journal as a school, can they I don't think in my experience they could ever forced them to get counseling, they can highly recommend it, but they couldn't force the kids to get outside counseling.
Dr. Peter Langman:You know, that gets into the legalities of education. That's not my expertise, right. But, you know, schools can conduct a threat assessment and we haven't talked about Threat Assessment yet. But a threat assessment is a formalized process to investigate a safety concern and determine if it's a false alarm or A real threat based on the outcome of a threat assessment, the school may be able to request or enforce some intervention. I don't know exactly the legalities of that. But if they get law enforcement involved, even if the school can't enforce certain things, the police have abilities to search the house, find more evidence, perhaps press charges, and so on. So there's a lot that the schools can do, especially if they work alongside of the local police department.
Chuck Shute:That's true. That's a good point. Yeah. Cuz you do bring that up about how the police can get a warrant with there's evidence and then they can search. And a lot of times when they search, then they find more evidence and journals or weapons and plans and all those kinds of things.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right, there may be a stockpile, or some gun bombs hidden in the kid's room that the parents had no idea, you know, where there, there could be online journal, handwritten journal, in a notebook that describes the plans. If the police can discover that level of evidence, then they have the leverage to make things happen.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, sorry. I'm surprised at all the schools. I don't think we ever had a threat assessment team. I feel like that should be something that would be standard at every school. Now.
Dr. Peter Langman:Some states now require that all schools have threat assessment teams, but that's just a few states. Most are not at that point yet.
Chuck Shute:Yeah. Well, and I mean, we did mention guns, and bombs and things. But I thought in your other book, you talk about a kid and this was a long time ago, obviously. 1927 A kid used dynamite to blow up a school. I don't think I've
Dr. Peter Langman:ever heard of this example. That was not a kid. That was a grown man. Well, that was a grown adult. Okay. Yeah. And he planted a lot of explosives in the basement of a school and blew up the school.
Chuck Shute:Okay. What about another factor that I think maybe there's some myth there, or there is some fact but how many of the school shooters were taking some sort of antidepressants or psychotropic medications, or had recently gone off them, because they know if you recently go off antidepressants, without tapering it off, you can have a surge of emotions.
Dr. Peter Langman:Now, based on my research, there were few shooters who were either on psychiatric medications or recently off them. I think that issue has been exaggerated. And I don't see that as a factor in the cases that I've studied. And I have a couple of documents on my website, looking into that and providing some data and information.
Chuck Shute:Do you think the street drugs play a role sometimes?
Dr. Peter Langman:Well, about half the school shooters that I looked at used either drugs or alcohol, most commonly the drug would be marijuana. I don't know how much that affected their behavior or played into the attack, virtually none of them were drunk or high at the time of the attack. So even if they, you know, like to drink a bit, or smoke some marijuana, they were clean and sober as they carried out their attack.
Chuck Shute:It's so interesting, you know, you've prevented a lot of these attacks with your with your own threat assessments, right.
Dr. Peter Langman:I don't know that. I can say that. I certainly worked with a number of potential school shooters in that the hospital that I mentioned, other people noticed the warning signs and got them to our facility. I worked in terms of evaluating them and recommending treatment and so on. But I think the real credit goes to the people who saw the warning signs and took action.
Chuck Shute:So how many attacks? Do you think that we've prevented? I mean, because they notice those ones never get any sort of news story, obviously,
Dr. Peter Langman:we've prevented a lot. And that could be dozens or a few 100. We tend not to hear about the Matthew said occasionally they do make the news. Mostly they don't. There is a database of averted school violence. So some people are tracking that and doing research and looking at how they were prevented, you know, who saw what warning sign and what was the line of communication. So people are studying averted school attacks, as well as actual school attacks, to learn as much as we can about how best to prevent them.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, because I just I think we should we should look at those statistics and hopefully we can prevent more. But I feel like like I said earlier, I feel like a lot of these issues are related and and even if we're not preventing an attack either we're helping these these kids get mental health help because it seems like a lot of whether maybe you're not preventing a mass shooting, but maybe you're preventing a suicide or other mental health issues.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right, if we do a better job of identifying kids who are struggling kids who are in crisis, get them the help they need, get them back on track, we can not only save their lives, but the lives of other people as well and help them to become safe and productive members of society.
Chuck Shute:Do you think? Yeah, do you think in different, like, we mentioned Dylan, but with all these kids, do you think they could have had different routes that they could have taken in life and not become school shooters or mass murderers?
Dr. Peter Langman:I think so based on the kids I've worked with in the hospital, I know that none of them went on to commit school shootings or other acts of mass violence. So what I take from that is, if the kids are identified, and they're maintained safely through whatever crisis they're going through, they can come out the other side.
Chuck Shute:Yeah. So because for like, the kids, or the kids that are the attacks that are prevented, those kids that get, I guess they get arrested. I mean, they go to some of them go to jail, right? Yes. And then none of them when they get out of jail, none of them when they said they were going to do an attack, they get arrested for that. And then they get out of jail. They don't go okay, well, now I'm free. And now I'm going to do the attack they've they've changed.
Dr. Peter Langman:For the most part, that's true. I do know of at least one case where someone was arrested for a threat or a potential attack. And then sometime later, when he was free, did commit an act of violence. So there's no guarantee, but overall, it seems like again, if they're caught in time, maintain safely given the services they need, they can come through that crisis and be okay.
Chuck Shute:Okay, yeah, cuz one case, it was really interesting is the Mitchell Johnson and drew, I forget to get Drew's last name, but Drew was only 11 years old. And they committed a shooting in Arkansas. And what the interesting thing to me is, I don't I know that you're not a legal expert, but fascinating to me that they get out of jail at age 21. So they're, then they're free. Now, I know Drew dies in a car accident. But Mitchell Johnson is still out there. He didn't. I don't think he's committed any shooting since then.
Dr. Peter Langman:No, Johnson has not committed acts of violence. He's, he's been jailed for some petty crimes, maybe drugs, or you know, financial stuff, theft, or whatever. But he's not committed any more violent attacks. The reason they were released is in Arkansas law at the time, no matter what crime you committed, if you were under the age of 14, you cannot be tried as an adult. They were 11 and 13. Therefore, under Arkansas law, they can only be held until their 21st. Birthday.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, that's horrifying. And I think you mentioned that, that the, the ages are getting younger and older, like the range, it used to be these teenage kids. But then we have, you know, people as old as 62 doing it. And as young as 11. It's really kind of frightening.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right? The age range of the school shooters seems to have expanded in both directions, as you said in the last 30 years or so.
Chuck Shute:Do you? Do you know I have a reason for that or like a theory as to why that is?
Dr. Peter Langman:I couldn't tell you we could speculate, but I don't know that anyone has a good answer.
Chuck Shute:Yeah. Yeah. Cuz it was definitely more of a school thing. And then it's like you said, there's these adults doing it now, too. So interesting. Well, yeah, we talked about all the different psychopathic, but going through your second book now that notes that a lot of your two books kind of overlap. I've noticed that a lot of the things in the stories, but people should get the books because they can read the case studies and the examples that we don't have time to go into all the details. But that's what's really fascinating. And then you really get an idea of all the different kinds of shooters that there are.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right? There's actually three books on the topic. And the first one why kids killed looks at 10 perpetrators. Second one's called school shooters looks at 48 perpetrators. So those case studies are less in depth, but there's a lot more of them. So you can look at broader patterns across the spectrum of perpetrators.
Chuck Shute:Okay, any I need to get that one I only read warning signs and why kids kill so we'll have to have you back on because this is just I feel like it's such an unless we suddenly fix this problem, which I don't see that happening anytime soon. So that we've discussed most of these kids traumatized shooters. Oh, this one. This was an interesting one. Jeffrey Wiese, the Native American kid. Definitely. That's a good example of a traumatized shooter. Right. Like as he was bounced from home to home and
Dr. Peter Langman:right. Something I didn't mention is on top of the trauma of like physical abuse or sexual abuse. A lot of these kids have chronically unstable living situations. His parents were never married. He lived with one and then the other, and then grandparents and foster homes. So he's constantly Starting over in a new home, a new caregiver, maybe a new school district. So there may be no continuity with his friendships, no continuity with his education. So on top of the stress of actual traumas, like abuse, and there's the stress of always starting over and trying to make a new life for himself in a new place.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, and but it's interesting, too, because, you know, people sometimes talk about the racism thing. And he identified as a Nazi, even though he was a Native American, that's very unusual.
Dr. Peter Langman:Yeah, he started posting on a neo Nazi forum. And at one point in a comment, he's, he admitted he was not really comfortable with this interest, but he kind of couldn't help it. And I think for a lot of shooters, they feel so disempowered, so helpless, that the Nazis represent power, and an ideology of superiority. And I think that's very appealing to a lot of these perpetrators.
Chuck Shute:And you do say that most of these shooters do regret doing the shoot the ones that you know, that we that don't kill themselves that are still alive, and they have the most of them have a lot of remorse and guilt.
Dr. Peter Langman:I think that's true for the psychotic and the traumatized shooters. Often the psychopathic shooters, tried to lie their way out of responsibility, blame someone else mitigate their sentence. They typically do not show remorse.
Chuck Shute:What have you talked to any of them that are in prison or in jail after the shooting? No, I have not just be interesting, too. I mean, I feel like that's one thing that doesn't, that people never talk about, you know, their lives after this whole thing. I mean, they've, they've ruined their lives. I mean, they've ruined obviously other people's lives, many other people's lives, but they've also ruined their own lives. Like, I feel like that could possibly be a deterrent for some kids to doing these things.
Dr. Peter Langman:Yeah, some of them could maybe try to set the kids on a better path. If if they were willing to speak out, if anyone who's willing to listen to them. A lot of them do feel, not just guilt, but self loathing. Some have not been able to live with what they've done, and they've tried to kill themselves in prison. So for those with a conscience, they realize the enormity of what they have done, and the suffering they have caused, and that they're suffering and probably will never get out of prison.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, it's a horrible, I mean, spending your birthday and Christmas in prison. I mean, that just sounds awful. As a kid, that's not a good way to finish out your rest of your life. So other things that we can talk about prevention, the warning signs, we've discussed that a lot. But another thing that's interesting is the limits on privacy, because that's that's always the debate with parents and teenagers. How much privacy do you give them, but you recommend maybe some routine checkups on what's going on, especially if they if there are already some warning signs there?
Dr. Peter Langman:Right? Well, a lot of parents already tried to monitor their kids social media. What I'm emphasizing there is there have been cases, where parents found that the kids had built a pipe bomb, or had ingredients to build explosives. And they confiscated the materials, but did not do subsequent checks. And those kids ended up stockpiling guns and bombs in their rooms that were never found, because the parents did not follow up on seeing what was there. So it's not just about invasion of your teenagers privacy. But if they've already engaged in disturbing illegal behavior, right, safety related behavior, then it's really important for the parents to take that seriously. And try to keep an eye on what's going on in the house.
Chuck Shute:That's a really good point. Yeah, cuz Eric Harris, the parents knew that he had built a pipe bomb, and then he just couldn't they never checked anymore. And he continued to build. Where was he? Was he hiding this stuff in the garage? Or something? I mean, how do you stockpile that many guns and hide them?
Dr. Peter Langman:Well, his bedroom was in the basement of the house. And I think he may have had some sort of like storage area built into a wall that was not secret, but the parents maybe thought they had no reason to go down there and, and look,
Chuck Shute:okay, so that's another one. And then for schools and things like following through on the guidelines, because that goes back to the KIPP Kinko on where the school said, Well, this kids, okay, we'll let them off because his parents are teachers. And that was the two of those, like you said, those guidelines are in place for a reason.
Dr. Peter Langman:And it's not just that the school led them off. They didn't suspend them, and we're going to formally expel him and they had him arrested. But no one asked any questions. There was no investigation, so no one asked him why he had a gun at school. No one asked any of his peers If they had heard Kip talking about anything, no one talked to the teachers because in one class, he had given an oral report on how to build explosives from household materials. In another class he attended in an essay which reference getting an AR 15 and killing people. So parents knew some things they have found. Pierce, I've heard comments, teachers had warning signs in their classrooms. The administration just did not ask any questions. They thought they handled it by having him arrested.
Chuck Shute:Right, and you say that punishment. So it's like a suspension does not prevent violence. That's that's a very clear indicator that is not going to do anything. It's suspending a kid.
Dr. Peter Langman:Right? Suspension and expulsion may be necessary. But if that's all you're doing, that's not a preventive action. Kids are coming back the same day they've been suspended and shot people where they could come back the next day, a week later a month later, and carry out the attack. So punishment by itself is not prevention. You need to do your investigation to see if there's a real threat that you need to intervene on.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, so when the attacks are? Oh, yeah. So I think we kind of covered this when attacks were thwarted, like, how long? How long? Can they lock these kids up for planning an attack? Like, is it typically five or 10 years if they had planned an attack? Or is it sometimes shorter? dependent? Is every case different? Or is there a typical length of imprisonment for things like that?
Dr. Peter Langman:I think every case is different. And a threat, or a planned attack may not result in prison time. It depends how old the student is how far along if it was just a threat, but no evidence of gathering guns and bombs and so on, might be might not even result in prison. So every case has to be taken individually.
Chuck Shute:Yeah. Do you think that people you know, maybe having some of these kids having some sort of purpose in life, or goals or life plan could prevent some of these things because if they just I know, like Adam Lanza, he was 20 years old, and he was just living with his mom. And it's, it sounds like he just played video games all day. And he I think he wrote something about, you know, I carry profound hurt, I'll go ballistic and transfer it onto you. But you know, if he had had some other purpose, because it seemed like he had no connection to the world.
Dr. Peter Langman:Yeah, a number of the shooters, especially young adult ones, maybe out of high school, were just floundering in life. And there's a term that one of them use is, it's neat and EA T, which stands for not in education, employment, or training. And their words are not working, they're not being trained for work, and they're not in school, they're going nowhere. And that's something that you see with the Sandy Hook perpetrator and others, that they're basically living in their parents home, playing video games, watching movies, going online posting things. But there's no one they're getting together with. There's no socializing happening. There's no significant other romantic partner. They're not in school, they're not working. They're doing nothing.
Chuck Shute:Yeah. Just seems like to me that, that the people that I talked to that are the happiest, it's not necessarily, you know, rich and successful people, but people that that feel like they have a purpose. You know, there's a lot of musicians I interview, and they not may not be, you know, Bruce Springsteen, but they're really happy because they get to play music and live out their dream. And maybe it's for a small portion of people, but they don't care because they're just doing what they want to do. Whereas like, I feel like a lot of these kids, maybe they just don't know what that is yet. But if they had something that they were really passionate about, I mean, even video games is kind of becoming like a career or streaming and video games and things like that. I mean, that could be something they could focus on. I don't know.
Dr. Peter Langman:I think everyone needs something a purpose, a person in their lives. You know, one prevention program says, if students have even one adult at the school with whom they feel they have a connection, you may be saving lives. So some schools will go down their list of students and see does anyone know this kid? Does anyone have a connection with them? It could be a coach, it could be an art teacher music teacher could be you know, English or math, it could be a guidance counselor. Does somebody know this student? And if not, we need to do some outreach, just to have that human connection.
Chuck Shute:Yeah, I love it. And I also just want to get back to my idea to about I think teaching kids how to interact with the opposite sex because that was a big thing. That romantic failures. I think that could be a piece of it for sure. Especially when they're 20 years old, and you know, they don't have a girlfriend that could be definitely significant for sure. So, all right, well, we've covered so much people can get the Three books, like you said, the warning signs is the one I read and what's why kids kill, but I'll have to check out that other one but great stuff and both books. And, you know, seems like again, it's some of it just seems like common sense. But I feel like we need to educate people on each other. And, and like you said, We're all on duty. So that's definitely something to keep an eye out for everything.
Dr. Peter Langman:Okay, thanks very much.
Chuck Shute:Yeah. So people can buy the book now, is there? Is there a charity that people can donate? That would be related to this or another charity that you want to mention here at the end? If after people buy your book, of course, they have some extra money leftover?
Dr. Peter Langman:You know, I haven't given that any thought. I don't know what to say in terms of charity or organization.
Chuck Shute:I'll just put something for mental health. I think there's a tons of mental health, I think that would be related. And I'm always a proponent of that. So people can donate a few extra bucks that way, if they they have leftover money. You can mention Nami. Yeah, Nami, I've promoted them many times. So okay. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you for all the work that you're doing. Like I said, I think you need to be more famous. So I'll do my best part to help you out as much as I can.
Dr. Peter Langman:Thank you. I appreciate that. Can you put a link up to my website or? Yes,
Chuck Shute:I will put that in the show notes along with my website and Nami. So all three of those websites will be in the show notes. Okay, great. Okay. Thank you. Bye. Okay, I think I forgot to mention another suggestion that Dr. Lang Minh had, which is to get a mental health checkup. Much like you would go to your doctor and get a physical once a year and your dentist every six months for cleaning, you would go to a mental health professional, periodically to just check your mental health, especially if it's someone at risk. It's something that I think that we can implement as a country and it'd be great if insurance companies would offer to pay for that free of charge with no stupid co pays or anything like that. Something to think about. Again, thank you to Dr. Liang Minh for coming on the show. You can buy his books and most places Amazon. One of them's on Audible. If you'd like to listen to books, or check his website for more information, it's in the shownotes. But you can also donate to National Alliance of Mental Health, Miami, or what does it stand for? I forgot. It's in the show notes. Anyways, please, if you can share this episode with friends and family on social media, the more people that we educate the better chance we have to stop something from happening. And remember, we're all on duty. So thank you for listening. Have a great day and shoot for the moon.
