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What Mass Killers Want—And How to Stop Them
The Wall Street Journal ^ | 11/08/2013 | Ari N. Schulman

Posted on 05/26/2014 8:31:14 AM PDT by ReaganÜberAlles

Rampage shooters crave the spotlight, and we should do everything possible to deprive them of it. How might journalists and police change their practices to discourage mass shootings? First, they need to do more to deprive the killer of an audience: Never publish a shooter's propaganda. Hide their names and faces. Don't report on biography or speculate on motive. Minimize specifics and gory details. No photos or videos of the event. Talk about the victims but minimize images of grieving families. Decrease the saturation.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: mass; massmurders; murder
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1 posted on 05/26/2014 8:31:14 AM PDT by ReaganÜberAlles
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To: ReaganÃœberAlles

Because ignorance really is bliss!

(see tagline for an equally workable solution)


2 posted on 05/26/2014 8:33:51 AM PDT by null and void (Disarm Hollywood! No Guns for Box Office!)
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To: ReaganÃœberAlles

News people can’t help themselves... ‘If it bleeds, it leads’ - Water Cronkite.

William Randolf Hearst once said the the Spanish American war saved his newspaper from collapsing. And he was certainly accused of fanning the flames of war more than once.

Mind you this article is accurate, deprive these people of a platform to ‘expose’ and publicize themselves and they’ll fade away into the dark of night. There’s nothing like being ignored to drive a narcissist nuts.


3 posted on 05/26/2014 8:35:36 AM PDT by The Working Man
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To: ReaganÃœberAlles

Said this a long time ago. Was roundly mocked.


4 posted on 05/26/2014 8:36:35 AM PDT by Lazamataz (Early 2009 to 7/21/2013 - RIP my little girl Cathy. You were the best cat ever. You will be missed.)
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To: ReaganÃœberAlles

“There is a growing consensus among researchers that, whether or not the perpetrators are fully aware of it, they are following what has become a ready-made, free-floating template for young men to resolve their rage and express their sense of personal grandiosity.”

Yes, I have expressed this here before but much more clumsily. Our mass media presents, even advertises, this solution for the disturbed to follow.

Most people can name the perp and know lots about his miserable life but can’t think of a single victims name. The victim’s families are either vague blurs or new-found spokesmen for government control of all aspects of our lives.

Want the President of the United States to say your name? Want a thousand “news analysts” to pore over your manifesto in public? Want to be, finally, “understood”? Want people to see your victims families cry and wail as proof of your power? Here, take this “assault rifle”* and we’ll make you famous worldwide forever!

*We won’t help you if you use a single-shot shotgun, it’s gotta at least have a magazine.


5 posted on 05/26/2014 8:44:51 AM PDT by DBrow
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To: Lazamataz

Ya, Laz, been there.


6 posted on 05/26/2014 8:45:16 AM PDT by DBrow
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To: ReaganÃœberAlles
I don't think this guy knows what he's talking about.

Anyone in law enforcement will tell you that their biggest fear is a person who goes on a crime spree who fully intends to die in the process (or at the end of it) -- because there's really nothing that can be done to deter that mutant.

This is what happens when hell no longer exists.

7 posted on 05/26/2014 8:46:46 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("What in the wide, wide world of sports is goin' on here?")
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To: Alberta's Child

Exactly.

No sense of eternal consequences for action = license to kill.

“If God is dead, all things are permissible.”


8 posted on 05/26/2014 8:49:51 AM PDT by TigerClaws
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To: ReaganÃœberAlles

The drive for ever-tightening social control is the main reason the press helps the mass killer to achieve his goals.

If we do as the article suggests and start to bury these events, anonymize the killer, and don’t say what brand of ammo he used, the public at large may realize that the most common use of firearms in the USA is target shooting and plinking, with mass killings making up a few parts per billion of shooting activity.

By doing what they do they ensure a steady stream of bloody propaganda for the disarmament crowd.


9 posted on 05/26/2014 8:50:43 AM PDT by DBrow
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To: ReaganÃœberAlles

That would help, but . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzT10MSgKtU

I make my living off the evening news
Just give me something
Something I can use
People love it when you lose
They love dirty laundry

Well, I coulda been an actor
But I wound up here
I just have to look good
I don’t have to be clear
Come and whisper in my ear
Give us dirty laundry . . .

We got the bubble headed
Bleached blonde
Comes on at five
She can tell you ‘bout the plane crash
With a gleam in her eye
It’s interesting when people die
Give us dirty laundry

Can we film the operation
Is the head dead yet
You know the boys in the newsroom
Got a running bet
Get the widow on the set
We need dirty laundry

You don’t really need to find out
What’s going on
You don’t really want to know
Just how far it’s gone
Just leave well enough alone
Eat your dirty laundry . . .

Dirty little secrets
Dirty little lies
We got our dirty little fingers
In everybody’s pie
We love to cut you down to size
We love dirty laundry

We can do the Innuendo
We can dance and sing
When it’s said and done
We haven’t told you a thing
We all know that Crap is King
Give us dirty laundry


10 posted on 05/26/2014 8:54:50 AM PDT by Pollster1 ("Shall not be infringed" is unambiguous.)
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To: The Working Man
News people can’t help themselves... ‘If it bleeds, it leads’ - Water Cronkite.

They provide what people want. Curiosity is where the problem begins.

11 posted on 05/26/2014 8:55:12 AM PDT by St_Thomas_Aquinas ( Isaiah 22:22, Matthew 16:19, Revelation 3:7)
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To: The Working Man

“There’s nothing like being ignored to drive a narcissist nuts.”

If we could just ignore B0...


12 posted on 05/26/2014 8:56:25 AM PDT by Zuse (I am disrupted! I am offended! I am insulted! I am outraged!)
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To: ReaganÃœberAlles

The recent murders in Cal may be demonstrating that certain medications are having some very bad effects and that’s what should be investigated not just blame it on guns.


13 posted on 05/26/2014 9:03:04 AM PDT by mosesdapoet (Serious contribution pause.Please continue onto meaningless venting no one reads.)
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To: mosesdapoet

“....certain medications are having some very bad effects...”

I don’t know, there are probably thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people on those same medications.

Now pretty clearly this kid was off his rocker, but I’m not sure that’s true of all mass/serial murderers.

That black guy who did those sniper shootings in the DC area (and killed a few other people iirc) I don’t remember him being particularly insane.

These stories get a lot of publicity because they are shocking, yes, but also because they don’t happen very much.

As someone pointed out here yesterday the amount of killings that go on in the black ghettos every day dwarf the death toll of these events. Heck, they dwarf the death toll of 9/11. But they are generally not considered newsworthy. To some extent that’s due to the fact that most of the time the people who get killed are just a scummy as the killers and to some extent because the MSM hates to say anyone who isn’t white is a criminal, but also because they happen all the time and so they really aren’t “news”.


14 posted on 05/26/2014 9:11:52 AM PDT by jocon307
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To: ReaganÃœberAlles
So this guy wanted the world to know how big a loser he was? He wanted everyone to conclude he was socially and sexually inept and probably homosexual to boot? He wanted the world to know he was out of touch with reality? Because that's what he got.


15 posted on 05/26/2014 9:22:03 AM PDT by gitmo (If your theology doesn't become your biography, what good is it?)
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To: ReaganÃœberAlles

First rule of newspaper publishing(and MSM news)...”IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS!”


16 posted on 05/26/2014 9:22:25 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Sometimes you need more than seven rounds, Much more.)
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To: Alberta's Child

AMEN, you got that right.


17 posted on 05/26/2014 9:23:43 AM PDT by Biggirl (“Go, do not be afraid, and serve”-Pope Francis)
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To: Pollster1
Oh yea. Kick em when there up. Kick em when there down. Kick em when there up. Kick em all around.

Pretty much sums up most of the news today. The Eagles had it right.

18 posted on 05/26/2014 9:30:10 AM PDT by mc5cents (Pray for America)
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To: ReaganÃœberAlles
The only problem with this theory is that the killer is usually dead. That makes it difficult for them to enjoy the infamy.

What these killers really want is power, even temporary, over others. They can't get it any other way except through the use of weapons.

You see the same sort of thing from leftists. The left are always going on about how they're victims of the powerful. The state's only real tool is violence, which the left are eager to use on others.

19 posted on 05/26/2014 9:59:48 AM PDT by freerepublicchat
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To: ReaganÃœberAlles
Hide their names and faces. Don't report on biography or speculate on motive. Minimize specifics ...

No. Most (all?) mass shooters in the past couple of decades have been so-called "progressives" or democrats or had been raised {snort} in such households. Modern day liberalism is a mental disorder and mass shootings are a side-effect of it. The liberals do not get off this easy - hiding the failures of their ideology in the name of trying to "help."

20 posted on 05/26/2014 10:13:27 AM PDT by ThunderSleeps (Stop obarma now! Stop the hussein - insane agenda!)
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