Those 27 mass shooters and fatherlessness
I noticed a number of people in this thread who cited a reported statistic about fatherlessness and mass shootings, which is that 26 of the shooters in the 27 deadliest mass shootings in the US grew up fatherless.
I’ve written about that assertion before, here. And while I have no doubt that the presence of a father is highly important and ordinarily beneficial for children, and the absence of a father is often highly detrimental, I beg to differ with that “26 of 27” statistic which appears to be based partly on this article.
The list of 27 can be found here. Let’s take them one by one.
(1) Stephen Paddock: his father was indeed absent for most of his life, but that was because his father was a career bank robber. Would it really have been any better had his father been present in his life?
(2) Omar Mateen: his father appears to have been present in Omar’s life.
(3) Seung Hui Cho: his father appears to have been present in his son’s life.
(4) Adam Lanza: I dealt with his relationship with his father in this post. Here’s an excerpt:
…[A]fter the divorce of Adam’s parents (which occurred when Adam was a teenager), his father was actually still quite heavily involved in Adam’s life until the son estranged himself from his father against his father’s wishes (see this for more on that).
(5) Devin Patrick Kelley: There isn’t much information about his parents, but I found nothing whatsoever to indicate father absence. The only article I could find that mentions his father is this one, which seems to be indicating an intact family.
(6) George Hennard: appears to have had an intact family with a father present.
(7) Patrick Crusius: there’s very little information available about his parents, but this article mentions the 21-year-old as living in the family home.
(8) James Huberty: was raised by his father. It was his mother who left the family when the son was around 10 years old.
(9) Charles Whitman: raised in an intact family with a father present. His father physically abused the mother and son.
(10) Nicholas Cruz: as I wrote here, Cruz’s father died when Cruz was seven, and his mother died when he was 17, leaving him orphaned. Reports are that it was his mother’s death that sent him on a tailspin, although I would imagine his father’s early death was very difficult for him too. Cruz had been adopted, by the way.
(11) Rizwan Farook: he appear to have had an intact home with an abusive father.
(12) Patrick Henry Sherrill: I can’t find anything about his upbringing and youth.
(13) Nidal Hasan: appears to have grown up in an intact home with a father present. His father died when Nidal was an adult of 28 and his mother a few years later.
(14) Jiverly Wong: intact family, father present.
(15) Eric Harris: intact family, father present.
(16) Dylan Klebold: intact family, father present.
I’m stopping now with the list because I’ve gotten tired of the tedious research and because I think I’ve already made my point – and that would be true even if every single one of the remaining killers grew up fatherless (which I doubt they did). However, one of them whom I happened to look up, Robert Gregory Bowers, had a father who committed suicide when the son was a year old. So Bowers definitely was raised without a father, although it’s hard to know whether it was the father’s absence or the fact that he was a suicide that was more determinative. Perhaps both.
So how did the claim of “26 of 27” originate? The initial statistic seems to have been more modest, and went like this (originally from this piece):
On CNN’s list of the “27 Deadliest Mass Shootings In U.S. History,” seven of those shootings were committed by young males since 2005. Of the seven, only one—Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho—was raised by his biological father throughout childhood.”
But as the longer list indicates, fatherlessness does not seem to be a particularly important factor overall in the lives of mass shooters (particularly that list of 27), although it certainly is for some. Generally, however, fatherlessness does predispose children to other problems such as criminal behavior, poverty, and substance abuse.
And of course, “fatherlessness” is not a unitary thing. It depends whether a divorce or a death is the cause, whether the father (when present) was a good father or an abusive one, and at what age the fatherlessness happens, as well as the resilience and personality of the child.
But this post isn’t meant to be a general one about the very substantial problems that can often accompany the lack of a father, or to minimize the potential problems of children who don’t have a father in their lives. It’s meant to expose the flaws in this particular “26 of 27 of the biggest US mass killers were fatherless” meme that’s been circulating for quite some time.
neo: Nice job. Turning back the tide of such misinformation could be one of the Buddha’s vows:
The deluding passions are inexhaustible. I vow to extinguish them all.
The number of beings is endless. I vow to save them all.
The Truth cannot be told. I vow to explain it.
The Way which cannot be followed is unattainable. I vow to attain it.
Virginia Tech was probably not a conditioned assassin. The rest… they sound like prime candidates.
A friend of mine came up with a category:
Little known facts which aren’t true.
Lot of those going around.
Good work, Neo. I’m in favor of facts, wherever they lead.
Not everything can have a neat explanation. When it comes to explaining the motivations of mass shooters, the reasons they are the way they are, I fear the brutal truth may be that sometimes people are just born broken. Sometimes you can do everything right and still end up losing. Sometimes things are beyond our control.
I’m sorry. I was one of those linking the article – and I clearly want it to be true, want fatherlessness to be common among the shooters, almost as common as them being males. But with respect to mass shooting, fatherlessness doesn’t seem to be as big a factor as the article indicated.
I do claim there are many social problems with fatherlessness, as Neo says:
criminal behavior, poverty, and substance abuse.
That should be, and is, enough to be against broken homes, tho it doesn’t say what policies or culture should change to further support married folk only having kids.
I remain against promiscuous sex, as advocated by young elite (and most college elite wannabees), but not so much practiced by them once they’re married themselves.
In comparison, some 400 people were shot trying to leave communist Czechoslovakia in the 41 years from 1948-1989 (Nov 17, 30 years ago). A couple thousand more political prisoners died in prison. Each one killed is one too many.
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
– Mark Twain
“It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so”
– Will Rogers
“It’s not ignorance does so much damage; it’s knowin’ so derned much that ain’t so.”
– Josh Billings
Australia’s mad feminists attract international attention
Robert Franklin from the US-based National Parents Organization has been writing an excellent series of blog posts https://nationalparentsorganization.org/blog/24465-a-1990-s-retro-piece-on-domestic-violence-no-just-present-day-shared-parenting-opponents about the way the Australian feminists are “howling like banshees” over the focus of this new inquiry:
“I’ve read article after article all aimed at the same thing – casting doubt on the latest Australian Governmental review of family law and courts in the Land Down Under. Those who oppose children having full, meaningful relationships with their fathers post-divorce don’t like the new review for the simple reason that they fear the truth may at last come out.”
Franklin points out that the previous review, by the Australian Law Reform Commission, was much more to the feminists liking. He’s written very detailed blogs about what was wrong with that review – and why the women’s groups were so keen on it. Franklin’s forthcoming blog will expose misinformation and distortions included in a dreadful article by Griffith University law lecturer, Zoe Rathus, published recently in The Conversation. Rathus’ title says it all: “Parental alienation: the debunked theory that women lie about violence is still used in court.”
Former WA Law Reform Commissioner, Augusto Zimmerman, has published an excellent Spectator Australia article: “How abuse of violence orders corrupts our family law system”.
Zimmermann points out there is an undeniable correlation between apprehended orders, false claims of domestic violence, and parental alienation. He mentions an analysis of NSW court files, which reveals that these domestic violence cases, on average, are dealt with in less than three minutes – a shocking statistic proving that absolutely no attempt is made to investigate whether such allegations have any validity. For the woman alleging violence the system is fool proof, with no risk at all that her lies will be exposed.
Via email from Bettina Arndt: Bettina@bettinaarndt.com.au
A statistic like ‘X out Y school shooters’ makes no sense without reference to a normal population. 100% of school shooters inhaled a mix of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% argon immediately before their mass shootings.
As did 100% of victims and bystanders.
Adding one more to what Tuvea on November 19, 2019 at 5:53 pm said:
“It isn’t so much that liberals are ignorant. It’s just that they know so many things that aren’t so.”
? Ronald Reagan
I find it interesting that a cut-and-pasted – becomes a ? in the comment.
If Edit was not on vacation, I would have corrected that.
Just wondering; is there any data on how many of the mass shooters were taking medically prescribed drugs and/or were supposed to be on certain drugs but had stopped taking them as prescribed?
I remember reading that factoid and thinking, with satisfaction, “Of course it’s true.”
Then I thought again and thought “Someone should check this. It’s a little too perfect.”
Thanks for stepping up to the plate.
Thanks AesopFan!
I have been struck by the number of these killers who were on SSRI drugs. Those drugs are known to cause suicidal thoughts in young people and it isn’t a very big jump from thinking of suicide to thinking of taking out those you hate just before committing suicide. These mass killings were very, very uncommon when I was young. The nation was shocked when the Texas tower shooter shot several people. Turned out he had a brain tumor. Now shootings seem all too common and instead of brain tumors these people are often on SSRI drugs. Possibly there is a connection.
A comprehensive detailed study of mass shootings would be nice, and it turns out that the National Threat Assessment Center dept. of the Secret Service did just release such a study. This study, however, is limited to school mass assaults.
I haven’t gotten very far beyond the summary section, but the only surprising thing so far is that a considerable number of these attacks are knife attacks. It is not possible that our media is giving us a biased impression of these events, is it?
Rachelle:
Somewhere I have a post on that; don’t have time to locate it now because I’m in a hurry. But the gist of it is that that’s another theory that circulates a lot online and yet doesn’t really hold water.
Rachelle: That the Univ Texas shooter had a small brain tumor (somewhere near the pineal, if memory serves) has zero to do with the cause of the shooting. There are after all thousands of brain tumors in the USA yearly, some in the same intracerebral location, and none have to the best of my knowledge been associated with mass violence/murder.
A Google search is unrevealing of brain tumors causing murder!
well with all this research you were doing some links would have been nice. I didn’t recognize hardly any of these names and only had the patience to google the first 7 😛
docweasel, You must be color blind like me. You need to roll your mouse pointer over the text to make those links pop their highlight color.
From Wikipedia on Whitman:
Yet another correlation = causation error.
Steve,
“tumor conceivably could have contributed to his inability to control his emotions and actions”
You mean that causation? “Conceivably contributed” and “equals” are synonyms? It is really a statement of “We don’t know.”
What is implied by 26 of 27 mass shooters grew up in fatherless households? That the absence of the father contributed to the mass shooting.
Interesting correlation? Maybe, but not demonstrably a factor in the commission of a mass shooting. So the headline, to me, is dishonest or a simple error of the type I mention.
Interesting correlation? Maybe, but not demonstrably a factor in the commission of a mass shooting.
Why not entertain the hypothesis that youths without fathers receive less discipline and less hands on instruction in processing their emotions?
Attribution error.