Dave Cullen School Shooting Theories

The American culture has been tainted with school shootings that are becoming a sort of tradition found in America. Most twenty-first-century school shootings have taken inspiration from the Columbine shooting, an event that has left a remarkable imprint on the future of school shootings and made the ones responsible infamous among them. In fact, Dave Cullen explores this idea in his nonfiction novel “Columbine”, where he illustrates the story of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and how the Columbine shooting was orchestrated, how it was carried out, and the aftermath that ensued, along with the pair’s psychotic paths that led to that event. Cullen’s argument was Eric being the manipulate genius behind the organization of the shooting while Dylan, who was not as psychotic, followed Eric through the event. One of the many

explanations to the Columbine tragedy revolves around the idea that the shootings before and after Columbine are interconnected. This theory is explored by Malcolm Gladwell in “Thresholds of Violence,” where he explains the shootings before Columbine as well as after. He intertwines his analysis with Mark Granovetter’s essay of how this can relate to a riot consisting of school shootings. Gladwell expanding on Granovetter’s essay about his theory that the people who start the riot do not need anyone to follow since they have a threshold of zero. After the threshold of zero, there is the first threshold who will not join unless there is someone before them who starts the riot, the next is the second threshold who needs two others to begin the riot before they will join, and then the third, etc. Afterward, Gladwell introduces the idea of this tradition being a slow moving riot with each successive person slowly enhancing this riot of school shootings. However, Elizabeth Winkler argues against Gladwell in her article, “Malcolm Gladwell Is Wrong About School Shooters,” claiming that shootings are meticulously planned, unlike a riot. She agrees that a riot could describe the fast spread of shootings but does not describe the killings. The shootings cannot be described simply as a riot because everyone who starts a shooting has a different reason for it; however, Gladwell’s theory for thresholds could be correct because his idea is a common trait where people follow a crowd, and once becoming large enough, it will become a tradition of school shootings where others are inspired from and take after.
The threshold theory, where Eric is threshold zero and Dylan is threshold one, sets the uniform potential of influential ideas that can create similar interests for groups within a society. After each shooting, someone in the country becomes less nervous about doing it themselves since others have already done it. Therefore, the more people that are successful in a school shooting, the easier it is for others to be successful as well. The thresholds come into full effect when a person who has a very high threshold causes a shooting because others have done it, which may influence someone else to do the same. Gladwell uses an example of John LaDue, who planned a shooting on his family and school, in order to connect the idea that it is not necessary to be violent to start a shooting. However, according to Cullen, Eric or Dylan were not as violent as people would normally believe. The two boys had very caring family and friends, along with decent jobs and relationships, overall having fairly pleasant lives. The psychotic path that encouraged Eric to want to start a shooting was that he hated society, aspired to be like the Nazis, but more radical: the annihilation of the entire human species. Eric’s reasoning was his immense hatred of everyone, but Dylan was fueled by Eric and without him, Dylan would not have boiled over. Their reasoning for starting the ‘role model’ of shootings is vastly different from LaDue’s which was to cause chaos and casualties. Gladwell quotes Granovetter to further his riot theory where a riot is a “social process, in which people did things in reaction to and in combination with those around them,” showing that a riot is a mass of people acting with and in reaction to each other, unlike that of school shootings which have different reasoning behind each shooter. Winkler argues for this stating, “Many plan meticulously, keeping journals, studying weapons and techniques, plotting the perfect mass murder” (Winkler). The reasons behind why they result to violence are kept in detail here. The shooters act alone setting up a model similar, but not exact to the other shootings. The masses in a riot copy, by verbatim mostly, from each other and act together, which is not found in school shootings.
The idea of thresholds shows how people who are hesitant are willing to do something by the number of their threshold, with a higher number being more reluctant. As Gladwell puts it, the person with a threshold of a hundred needs one hundred others to do it also before they will. The point that Gladwell puts across with thresholds is, “that young men no longer need to be deeply disturbed to contemplate horrific acts” (Gladwell). The more and more people that pull off a school shooting, the more those people with higher thresholds will be reached and would pull one off themselves. Shooters never usually belong to a crowd of people which makes them naturally distant from others. The distance creates loneliness and frustration that leads to anger that sums up to violence. In fact, those that commit such acts are usually those rejected from the societal group around them; they want to fit in but never do (Singal). A portion of people follow a crowd that acts in similar interests as they do; to be without one leaves you alone and lost. The very last option for people like this is a shooting because it gives them what they want, the attention they lack. At first, it seems like they are joking and would never do it, but if pushed off the edge, they very well could do it without anyone paying attention. The possibility increases further when more people start school shootings and they start to think they can start one also; depending on how long it takes for them, their threshold will come.
The playbook of school shootings is made from the Columbine script, which are the basement tape videos, blog website, and personal journals from both Eric and Dylan. The large shootings just after Columbine were direct references to them both, and the shooters made sure of that. They followed in Eric’s footsteps and joined the revolutionary tradition that Eric had started. Cullen explains that Eric wanted to destroy the human race but settled for the only thing in his power he could destroy, his school. Eric knew that he could not pull off the destruction of Denver or even downtown Denver so he sought after his school which was the next most significant thing. Dylan and Eric used the tapes to inspire other future shooters and tell them what to do. The script was an aid for shooters to have a model and lose their hesitation in following Eric and Dylan instead of just watching their example. LaDue preferred that people said, “[...] I never knew he would do something like that. Someone you would not suspect” in order to have that surprise aspect (Gladwell). Eric and Dylan are prime examples of that as well, they had a good life going for them, but were instead planning for a massive bombing at their school. All the shootings after have modeled Columbine by the tactics, clothing or actions which create a routine. CNN quotes President Obama on the topic of the Oregon shooting saying, “Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine, the conversation in the aftermath of it[…]” as he further goes on to complain that we have become numb to all this happening because it has become so frequent. The numbness goes further, into our media. Shootings are not covered as much as they once were because of the loss of public interest and raising awareness of copycats. A study from Arizona State University from July 2015 showed significant evidence for school shootings if similar school shootings were reported on the news. Additionally, psychologists from Vienna, Austria urged local media in the 1980s to keep subway suicides from increasing anymore from their recent high by withholding all specific details: names, body count, location, etc.; the result was subway suicides dropped 75% (Purtill). Media has ceased their report on most shootings to prevent more from occurring in hopes of breaking the tradition of shootings that has gone one far too long. The slow decline of shootings has resulted from these efforts, but with more awareness of specifics comes more reasons to start one. Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin, who was the sheriff during the Oregon shooting, encouraged to not utter the name of the shooter taking the reason to influence the next away. The revolutionary tradition Eric and Dylan have created can be brought to a stop by giving what Winkler argues they need to start one, attention. The Columbine script influences others to start a shooting and if the script is slowly forgotten less will join the revolution.
Thus, Gladwell uses the threshold theory to further the reasoning behind the increase of shootings since Columbine and it served as a script of journals and blogs to follow.

Gladwell is not wrong about these points, however, he is incorrect in his riot theory. Winkler justifies this by a riot being spontaneous not meticulously planned with each shooter being influenced by different reasons. Every shooting has it’s unique reason for why it was done, why it was done where it was, why the shooter acted the way they did. Each shooting is left for society to not undermine their cause of healing and togetherness in the aftermath. Shootings stain the American culture with the abrupt loss of life and destruction of communities, however, society can mend the wounds by not giving notice to the event but instead to those that are affected. The causes for the shooting are just as important as the effects of them, therefore each should have equal attention. The future of school shootings are affected by the past but also the more important present which will determine the outcome of the next leaving society to give the next shooter a reason to pull the

trigger.