title: In Search of Meaning: Are School Rampage Shootings Random and Senseless Violence?
abstract: This article discusses Joel Best's ( 1999 ) notion of random violence and applies his concepts of pointlessness, patternlessness, and deterioration to the reality about multiple-victim school shootings gleaned from empirical research about the phenomenon. Best describes how violence is rarely random, as scholarship reveals myriad observable patterns, lots of discernable motives and causes, and often far too much fear-mongering over how bad society is getting and how violent we are becoming. In contrast, it is vital that the media, scholars, and the public better understand crime patterns, criminal motivations, and the causes of fluctuating crime rates. As an effort toward such progress, this article reviews the academic literature on school rampage shootings and explores the extent to which these attacks are and are not random acts of violence.
authors.affiliation: a University of Washington Tacoma.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Madfis
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002423:Cause of Death; D002648:Child; D019548:Crime Victims / Q000523:psychology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006708:Homicide / Q000523:psychology* / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D038622:Internationality; D008297:Male; D008402:Mass Media / Q000639:trends; D009014:Morals; D009042:Motivation; D010469:Perceptual Distortion; D011582:Psychological Theory; D012574:Schools / Q000706:statistics & numerical data* / Q000639:trends*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000150:complications; D014481:United States; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology*; D014948:Wounds, Gunshot / Q000401:mortality / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Homicide; mass murder; random violence; school rampage; school shootings