Beyond the Shooter Stereotype

It’s July 17th, 2024, four days after the attempted assassination of presidential candidate Donald J. Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania.

The shooter was 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, about 40 miles from where the rally took place.

There are many shocking aspects surrounding the assassination attempt: the lack of awareness by the Secret Service, the response of the Republican nominee, or the fact that Trump would be dead if he hadn’t turned his head at the last minute.

But one thing that seems unsurprising, to me at least, is the characteristics, personality, and appearance of the shooter.

They fit the exact mold and archetype of what one might distinguish as a self-determined gunman: a scrawny, nerdy-looking prepubescent white male with acne, a terrible hygiene routine, clothes from Marshalls (and not the good sections), and one overtly disproportionate facial feature. Adam Lanza, Dylann Roof, Nikolas Cruz, Stephen Paddock—the list goes on and on.

Why is this? Why has this become such a common category? A reference so nuanced that even when reading this, you know someone, or multiple people, from your years at public school who fits the bill.

It’s not a coincidence. Our experiences and surroundings, how messy our room is, what we wear, how we look, are all reflective iterations of internal manifestations. We see these physical symptoms with almost every known mental illness. We can imagine the room of someone who is depressed versus someone who has OCD. These mirrored symbols of our internal psyche are also shown through various personalities. The food someone orders at a restaurant who is highly neurotic vs. someone highly open to experience is different – we’re talking chicken fingers vs. Chicken à la King, and I don’t even know what that is. I had to Google it.

My point is that this “trend,” as my brother puts it – this whole school shooter cliché – deserves to be fully dissected, its roots ripped out to understand why it even exists in the first place.

“They Were Bullied…”

Let’s start with a common misconception: “They Were Bullied…” It’s the go-to shroud remark that media outlets print as the headline after every American shooting.

It’s the aha moment, seemingly supposed to justify in some sick and twisted way the actions of these repulsive individuals, like it’s some giant piece of the puzzle that’s supposed to make the whole thing make sense.

Excuse my language, but that’s total bullshit. They were bullied. Do you know how many countless people, since the dawn of humanity, have experienced “bullying”? This new age idea that putting a control on innate social inhibitory instinct on all 14-year-old freshmen is ridiculous.

I’m not advocating for relentless unjust suffering from a shitty middle schooler. I’m not here to say that it doesn’t exist either. On the contrary, it exists so much and has existed for so long that thinking somehow bullying is the main issue of America’s youth today is just untrue.

People are bullied every day, and they don’t end up murdering someone. So, where’s the real problem?

Why Does the Bully… Bully?

Why does someone get bullied in the first place? We know this. We’ve seen countless movies and public school infomercials.

“The bully has some deep insecurities or personal issues, and they reflect them on an easy target to feel better.”

Makes sense, right? It’s the classic defense mechanism, projection. The victim serves as a catalyst to help the bully get through their own issues or climb in social status. Regardless, it always seems to be about the bully, never the victim.

Are we missing something though? Are things always so black and white? Is there a small seed of truth to what’s being done that the bully takes and amplifies unjustly for their own benefit?

Don’t get me wrong, unjust suffering is more than true. Being bullied for things you can’t control is truly the devil’s deed.

What about the things you can control, though?

Maybe that kid does actually smell like hard-boiled eggs. Maybe they do say weird things in class, and maybe their haircut is like a character from the Muppets. I guess either they don't care or they aren’t aware. My bet is the latter.

Letting someone know about these impediments so they can improve doesn’t seem like the worst thing. In an ideal world, a friend could deliver these tips and help their friend. But we don’t live in an ideal world, and kids are mean and immature. Hence, being kids, they are unaware of their personal issues, which doesn’t stop them from taking advantage of the victim’s shortcomings and weaponizing them for themselves.

Growth demands friction. I’d rather live in a world where I am being bullied about potential things I can improve, after all, there is a seed of truth there, rather than knowing nothing at all and continuing to live a life where I am worse off as an individual.

Again, that’s just me. I am speaking from a point of bias because I believe I was fortunate enough to be equipped with the necessary tools to handle my social criticism during my own coming-of-age story.

Not everyone is that fortunate…

In What Ways Can the Victims React?

We’re social creatures. Bullying is a social interaction. It revolves around the discourse of being accepted or not by a given friend group, sports team, community, classroom, etc.

Therefore, it should be the number one goal for any parent to develop their child in a manner which they can not only be accepted by social groups but thrive in them. Make your kid so they are liked by other kids.

It starts as early as in child infancy with attachment formation and how the parent or caregiver responds to the needs of the infant, to how the parents play with their kids, what lines they draw, when they give in, and when they don’t. All crucial for the remainder of how a child will see their relationships with other humans forever.

That being said, how this developmental stage in a child’s life goes will directly impact how they digest social criticism.

They could A: With parental support, find a proper way to process or combat the torment

Or

B: Hyperfixate on the criticisms, and without a proper sounding board, bury it until it boils and bleeds over into the worst aspect of their lives.

Hence, the real issue isn’t bullying per se, rather the broader community of immediate support a child has in their life. With a healthy environment, the child can not only be raised with a higher sense of social intelligence that will deter forms of bullying that happen in the first place but also be equipped with the right structural base to inhibit any longstanding damage that can come from whatever insult the 11th grader, whose parents are going through a divorce, will throw at them.

Get to the Point!

My point is that the sociological and psychological characteristics surrounding the resounding similarities from many American shooters, as well as Thomas Matthew Crooks, deserve to be looked into seriously.

These factors aren’t just mere characteristics; they’re clues in a broader mystery that has led to countless tragedies in our country over the past three decades. To label each one as solely a symptom of bullying is just lazy.

As a community, we have to be better at seeing things deeper than the hot-button headlines we read in the media. Things are rarely as simple as they appear head-on. After all, are you?