Abstract
A critical discussion of the controllability of school shootings on the basis of the thesis of double loss of control, composed of elements of social disintegration theory, youth theory, and control theory. Using the research findings to date, it is shown that school shootings are largely caused by negative recognition balances in the spheres of socialization of family, school, and peer group, and thus by the perpetrator’s loss of control over his own life. On the other side, society sees itself confronted with the impossibility of systematically controlling a violent phenomenon of this kind, because the interaction of incident-generating processes is largely hidden from view and is genuinely rooted in structural causes. The primary public response involving ritualized explanations and repressive strategies may generate a welcome illusion of control, but turns a blind eye to the devastating counterproductive consequences.
This is an abridged and revised version of “School Shooting: A Double Loss of Control,” first published in Control of Violence: Historical and International Perspectives on Violence in Modern Societies, ed. W. Heitmeyer, H.-G. Haupt, A. Kirschner, and S. Malthaner, pp. 261–294 (New York, NY: Springer, 2010).
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Notes
- 1.
Nineteen-year-old Robert Steinhäuser attacked his school, the Johann-Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt, Germany, on April 26, 2002, during the final examinations from which he had been excluded. He committed suicide after killing 16 and wounding another 7.
- 2.
The quotes given in the article from the personal writings of Harris and Klebold serve merely to illustrate and should not be taken as systematic empirical proof. Spelling and grammatical mistakes and use of emphasis are as in the originals.
- 3.
On November 20, 2006, 18-year-old Sebastian Bosse injured 37 people at the Geschwister-Scholl-Realschule in Emsdetten, Germany, before committing suicide.
- 4.
For example, in one of his videos (the Basement Tapes), Eric Harris complains that he spends hardly any time with his parents or his brother, with the result that there are no deeper emotional bonds between him and his family (JC-001-010377). Similar subjective deficits in emotional recognition are also revealed by the writings of Dylan Klebold: “my parents piss me off & hate me … want me to have fuckin ambition!! How can i when i get screwed and destroyed By everything??!!!” (personal testimony, Dylan Klebold, 1997, JC-001-026400).
- 5.
Both Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold expressed the anguish they suffered through being despised by their peers: “Everyone is always making fun of me because of how I look, how fucking weak I am and shit, … people make fun of me … constantly … Therefore I get no respect and therefore I get fucking PISSED” (personal testimony, Eric Harris, 1998, JC-001-026014). “I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things. And no don’t fucking say ‘well thats your fault’ because it isn’t, you people had my phone#, and I asked and all, but no. no no no don’t let the weird looking Eric KID come along, ooh fucking nooo” (personal testimony, Eric Harris, 1999, JC-001-026018). “i HATE my life, i want to die really bad right now … nobody accepting me even though i want be accepted” (personal testimony, Dylan Klebold, 1997, JC-001-026390).
- 6.
Excerpts from the suicide note of the German school shooter Sebastian Bosse show that this situation gives rise to severe conflict potential. “I want my face to be burned into your brains! I don’t want to run away any more! I want to do my part for the revolution of the dispossessed! I want REVENGE! I’ve been thinking about how most of the students that humiliated me have already left the school. I have two things to say about that: (1) I wasn’t only in one class, I went to the school as a whole. No way are the people at the school innocent! Nobody is! They’ve got the same program running in their heads as the earlier years! I am the virus that wants to destroy these programs, and where I start is totally irrelevant. (2) Most of my revenge will be directed against the teachers, because they are people who intervened in my life against my will and who helped to put me where I now stand: On the battlefield! Almost all these teachers are still at this damn school! Daily life the way it takes place these days must be the most pathetic thing the world has to offer! S.C.J.R.D.—School, college, job, retirement, death. That’s the life “normal” people have today. But what does normal even mean? S.C.J.R.D. starts at the age of six here in Germany, when children start school. That’s when children start on their personal path of socialization, and in the years to come they are forced to adapt to the majority. If they refuse, they get into trouble with teachers, parents, and finally with the police. Compulsory schooling is just a euphemism for coercive schooling, because they are forced to go to school … Anyone who is forced to do something loses some of his freedom. We are forced to pay taxes, we are forced to observe speed limits, we are forced to do this, we are forced to do that. Therefore there’s no freedom!” (Sebastian Bosse’s suicide note, translated from Rötzer 2006).
- 7.
Thus Sebastian Bosse wrote in his blog: “Most people don’t know about it. They thought I was going to school every day. I don’t play along, just go back home. The only time that anyone really noticed anything was when they pressed a red-hot key against my hand … the principal reported it to the police. But nothing else happened. All the other things that happened, nobody wanted to see them, or nobody really did see them” (Bosse, blog entry dated May 26, 2005, 1.27 a.m.).
- 8.
For example, Eric Harris expressed his identification with achievement-based norms and values in a school essay about a year before the shooting. The essay also reveals his need for positional recognition: “Being a leader is a very admirable quality. I respect people who are good strong leaders and know what they are doing, and I do not respect people who are weak, uneducated leaders. This is why I want to be a strong leader. I am hoping team sports and other classes will help me achieve this quality. If I am considering a military career, then leadership is an extremely important quality. I am expecting to learn how to be organized and responsible, how to treat people equally, how to listen attentively and how to solve problems logically. I am hoping my senior classes and experiences will help my goals” (school essay, Eric Harris, 1998, JC-001-026724).
- 9.
Eric Harris viewed his crime as a moral measure for restoring justice. According to his own testimony, the crime could have been prevented if he had received more social recognition. “I’m showing too much of myself, my views and thoughts, people might start to wonder, smart ones will get nosey and something might happen to fuck me over, I might need to put on [a mask] here to fool you all some more. fuck fuck fuck It’ll be very hard to hold out until April. If people would give me more compliments all of this might still be avoidable, … but probably not. Whatever I do people make fun of me, and sometimes directly to my face. I’ll get revenge soon enough. Fuckers shouldn’t have ripped on me so much huh” (personal testimony, Eric Harris, 1998, JC-001-026015).
- 10.
The leitmotifs of power, dominance, and masculinity are reflected in Eric Harris’ reflections on the planned shooting: “itll be like the LA riots, the oklahoma bombing, WWII, vietnam, duke and doom all mixed together. maybe we will even start a little rebelion or revolution to fuck things up as much as we can. i want to leave a lasting impression on the world” (personal testimony, Eric Harris, 1998, JC-001-026856).
- 11.
Eric Harris appears initially to have compensated the recurring violations of moral recognition in his imagination, in which he renounced accepted social ideas of justice and accepted only his own will as the decisive authority. “My belief is that if I say something, it goes. I am the law, if you don’t like it, you die. If I don’t like you or I don’t like what you want me to do, you die. If I do something incorrect, oh fucking well, you die. Dead people cant do many things, like argue, whine, bitch, complain, narc, rat out, criticize, or even fucking talk. So that’s the only way to solve arguments with all you fuckheads out there, I just kill! God I can’t wait till I can kill you people” (Eric Harris’s website, 1998, JC-001-010367).
- 12.
For example, Dylan Klebold experienced the consequences of social exclusion as follows: “this is a weird time, weird life, weird existence …I think a lot. Think …Think … that’s all my life is, just shitloads of thinking … all the time … my mind never stops … i am in eternal suffering … hoping that people can accept me … that i can accept them” (personal testimony, Dylan Klebold, 1997, JC-001-026388). “i see how different i am (aren’t we all you’ll say) yet i’m on such a greater scale of difference than everyone else … I see jocks having fun, friends, women, LIVEZ” (personal testimony, Dylan Klebold, 1997, JC-001-026389).
- 13.
Two examples of Eric Harris’ pre-delict fantasies: “Well all you people out there can just kiss my ass and die. From now on, i don’t give a fuck what almost any of you mutha fackers have to say, unless I respect you which is highly unlikely … for the rest of you, you all better fucking hide in your houses because i’m comin’ for EVERYONE soon, and i WILL be armed to the fuckin teeth and I WILL shoot and kill and I WILL fucking KILL EVERYTHING! No I am not crazy … everyone is different, but most of you fuckheads out there in society, going to your everyday fucking jobs and doing your everyday routine shitty things, I say fuck you and die. If you got a problem with my thoughts, come tell me an i’ll kill you” (Eric Harris’ website, 1998, JC-001-010360). “We of the Trenchcoat Mafia still march around, military-style in our trenchcoats, especially in the school hallways, honing and developing our master plan. We will conquer the entire world once we get a few things straight and make our bombs! … Our master plan is to kill at least 500 people at our high school, besiege the local neighborhood, seize the airport, and then crash a plane full of jocks and cheerleaders into the Pentagon” (Eric Harris’ website, undated, quoted from Larkin, 2007, p. 162).
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Heitmeyer, W., Böckler, N., Seeger, T. (2013). Social Disintegration, Loss of Control, and School Shootings. In: Böckler, N., Seeger, T., Sitzer, P., Heitmeyer, W. (eds) School Shootings. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5526-4_2
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