Mass Casualty Attack. This broad terminology refers to several distinct forms of extreme violence that seek to commit mass murder of innocent people in public places. Within the Continental United States this crime most often materializes as the “active shooter.” As this common term implies, the perpetrator most often goes on a shooting spree, wounding and killing multiple people. The issue remains that many attacks utilize different tools of destruction, and the perpetrator often falls into one of several profiles, so active shooter is a limited descriptor.
A Long, But Accelerating, History
There is no denying that mass casualty events have significantly increased in frequency in the past two decades. However, CONUS was hardly immune to this form of extreme violence in decades, even centuries, past. Consider several standout examples:
1927, Bath, Michigan. A man named Andrew Kehoe, a janitor in the school of the small town of Bath, population of about 300, detonated dynamite in the basement of the school where he worked, killing 38 children and himself. Unfortunately, Columbine was not the first of such tragedies. Bath remains the deadliest school mass murder in our history. Evil is hardly new.
1949, Camden, New Jersey. Howard Barton Unruh, a young veteran of the Second World War, took a twelve-minute walk down a busy city street and killed thirteen people with a handgun. This event is often credited as the first mass shooting in the modern era.
1966, Austin, Texas. Charles Whitman climbed to the top of the clock tower on the campus of the University of Texas with a rifle and murdered 14 people and wounded 31 others. This is a better-known incident than the afore mentioned two, likely due to the advancement in media, such as television, by this time.
So, this is nothing new. There is, however, a stark increase in such events since the birth of the 21st Century.
Why the Increase in Frequency of Mass Casualty Attack?
What accounts for this increase in such events over the past several years? A variety of forces. Society now celebrates grievance, the blaming of others for the failures of self. The internet, and particularly the advent of social media, seems to directly correlate with this increase, as these monsters now live a virtual life in echo chambers that re-enforce their nihilistic world view. Regarding the terror related attacks, online publications and radical influencers work to motivate individuals who already bend that way. Further, the bar has been set so that individuals who desire notoriety and want to “be someone” seek to out-do the last attack.
Other factors that certainly contribute to this terrible phenomenon are social isolation, as these individuals are often estranged from family and living cut off from a surrounding social group that can intervene. Further, mental illness is at an all-time high. Concerning the terror-oriented threats, un-vetted immigration, both legal and illegal, and no social expectation to assimilate, has fueled this problem. Consistent failures among law enforcement who have the problematic individual “on their radar” yet don’t intervene is the norm. Finally, a soft society that enforces gun free zones, the overwhelmingly chosen sites of attack, empower mass murder.
Three Vectors of Attack
There are three distinct categories of mass casualty perpetrators:
- The Active Killer
- The Lone Wolf
- The Organized Terror Actor
The Active Killer:
In the Continental United States, the majority of mass casualty attacks are perpetrated by the Active Killer. This individual is one who commits mass murder, or attempts to, for twisted self-motivations that are not aligned with any greater cause or ideology other than a desire for revenge on society. The active killer is the disgruntled workplace employee who goes on a rampage, or the highschooler who attacks his own school that he has grown to hate. Or, perhaps, a deeply disturbed person who devolves into severe mental illness and sadism and carries out an attack on a public location. The motivation of the active killer tends to be a combination of:
Grievance + Revenge on Society + Nihilism
The active killer typically has a background full of red flags: He is anti-Social and awkward around others. He is Isolated, often without any family intervention of significance. He may or may not be treated for mental illness. Despite the great deal of discussion surrounding the influence of SSRI medication on these events, I recall a study that found only one in three active killers were on SSRIs at the time of the attack. There are often a variety of red flags in his behavior, such as cruelty to animals, making threats of various kinds, drawing disturbing images, or writing violent letters or social media posts. Almost always there is also fascination with previous mass casualty attacks. These traits seem consistent across the spectrum of this threat.
The Lone Wolf:
The lone wolf often shares much in common with the active killer, but the primary difference is that this threat aligns the reasons for the attack with some kind of ideology, be it political, social, or religious. Thus, a lone wolf is a self-motivated and self-radicalized actor that attacks on behalf of a cause, often self-declaring allegiance to a terror group or to an overall ideal. As an example, Omar Mateen, the killer in the Pulse Nightclub attack, declared allegiance to a prolific terror group right before the event. His actions fit into the typical active killer, “active shooter,” paradigm, but the radicalized allegiance to the group makes this lone wolf rather than active killer. Similarly, Timothy McVey, perpetrator in the Oklahoma City Bombing, was lone wolf, because he acted in an allegiance to an alt-right ideology, though not in the name of any particular organization. So, the difference is:
Grievance + Revenge on the Perceived Enemy + Ideology
Organized Terror Actor
This final category of threat refers to an individual who acts in direct servitude, and under the control, of an actual terror organization. This particular threat has been, historically, rare in the United States, with 9/11 being the notable exception. Most terror related attacks in CONUS have been due to lone wolf activity. Fearfully, many recognized experts in intelligence predict a large scale, coordinated, attack coming in the near future that will be conducted by organized terror actors. After four years of an open border, and currently during a time of international turmoil, the threat of coordinated terror is very real. With that said, organized terror is much harder to coordinate, and much more difficult to keep clandestine, than is lone wolf attack. For these reasons we will certainly see an increase in lone wolf activity, but a large-scale organized terror attack is also feasible.
The organized terror actor is the most dangerous of the three profiles in terms of potential carnage in the scope of a single attack for several reasons:
First, the organized terror actor is likely to work in groups of multiple assailants. While such attacks have proven rare in the U.S., they have been far more common in Europe and Asia. Attacks such as Mumbai, Paris, Beslan, London Bridge, and many others, consisted of multiple individuals attacking one, or several, locations simultaneously.
Second, the organized terror actor is much more likely to use a combination of weaponry, including firearms and explosives. There are often multiple phases in these attacks with multiple tools used, compared to the active killer or lone wolf that typically use one primary means of assault.
Third, the organized terror actor tends to be programmed to die on mission and does not stop with resistance; they either fight to the death or self-terminate through the detonation of explosives. The active killer and the lone wolf often (but not always) surrender or self-terminate once resistance materializes.
Pertaining to the psychological profile of the organized terror actor, while the leaders and commanders of these operations might be more capable, the perpetrators are typically low IQ, ignorant, individuals with few prospects who prove easy to indoctrinate. They are often people who are seeking adventure past their own dead-end existence. While they may serve in the name of religious ideology, intelligence operatives who have interrogated them find, consistently, that very few have any actual knowledge of the religion itself. The profile of this threat can be surmised as:
Grievance + Ideology + Desire for Adventure
These are the three profiles of this threat. While resulting violence may, ultimately, manifest in a similar way, understanding the particulars of this enemy is important. Also consider that, historically, the active killer and lone wolf tend to be readily neutralized by a capable good guy with a handgun that is on scene, as we have many such success stories now, but a coordinated terror attack, with multiple cells of multiple adversaries, is a tougher fight.
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