What Makes a Mass Shooter?

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2022

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In America, unthinkable violence has become routine. In the wake of the Buffalo and Uvalde mass shootings, David Remnick speaks with the researchers Jillian Peterson and James Densley, whose book “The Violence Project” is the most in-depth study of mass shooters. Pro-gun politicians may continue to block any measures to reduce violence, but we can understand better a different side of the equation: what motivates these crimes. David Remnick speaks with two criminal-justice researchers who have studied mass killers, James Densley, of Metropolitan State University, and Jillian Peterson, of Hamline University. They point out that mass shootings have risen alongside deaths of despair, including overdoses and suicide. “The perpetrator goes in with no escape plan,” Peterson points out. “What we can learn from suicide prevention can teach us how to prevent some of these mass shootings. We haven’t connected these two things.” Remnick is also joined by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, who wrote about the Buffalo attack for The New Yorker; and we hear from a 70-year-old resident of Uvalde, Texas, about the aftermath of the killings in a tight-knit community.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.
0:03.6	I'm David Remnick.
0:13.0	I'm Willie Edwards.
0:15.0	Pretty much a lifetime resident of Evaldi, Texas.
0:18.8	I've lived here ever since I was one,
0:20.5	and I'm proud to say I'm 70 now.
0:25.0	I was actually at a restaurant 20 miles from town with a friend and his wife who my friend had
0:34.9	back surgery today. He's doing well. And as we were leaving the restaurant,
0:41.4	a friend of mine, former teacher, said that she just got a text that there was an active shooter at
0:47.2	Rob that maybe a teacher had been killed. And my wife and I, you know, just drove towards Rob Elementary and it became obvious that it was
0:59.0	something really bad was going on, lots of ambulances. And then the tolls started coming in,
1:08.8	14 children dead, 18 children dead, 19 children dead, two adults, three adults.
1:18.7	We're just learning what all is involved, who all's involved.
1:24.1	You know, I just found out, you know, my wife has a former student whose daughter was one of the ones killed.
1:32.3	And the last picture they took of her was holding her certificate for being in the all A, B, on a row.
1:43.3	They had an awards program yesterday at Rob Elementary.
1:48.4	And to see that beaming face with all that possibility and hope and joy.
1:53.2	And to know it's not here anymore is pretty damn painful.
1:58.1	And it's going to be painful for a while.
2:05.6	You know, I had a cousin that texted me and it was yesterday and it was like,
2:11.6	do you know anybody that's been affected?
2:14.6	And I love my cousin, but that was one of the stupider things I've ever had to ask me
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC Studios and The New Yorker, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.