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Mass murder

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Twenty-six republicans were assassinated by fascists that belonged to Franco's Nationalists at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, between August and September 1936. This mass grave is placed at the small town named as Estépar, in Northern Spain. The excavation occurred in July–August 2014.

Mass murder is the act of murdering a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a short period of time and in close geographic proximity.[1][2] The FBI defines mass murder as murdering four or more persons during an event with no "cooling-off period" between the murders. The term can be used to cover many types of killings, including Spree Killing, family murder/suicides, and multiple deaths as an indirect result of an action (e.g. arson).

See also: List of rampage killers, mass shooting, and vehicle-ramming attack

Mass murderers may fall into any of a number of categories, including killers of family, of coworkers, of students, and of random strangers. Their motives for murder vary.[3] A notable motivation for mass murder is revenge, but other motivations are possible, including the need for attention or fame.[4][5][6]


By states

The concept of state-sponsored mass murder covers a range of potential killings. It is defined as the intentional and indiscriminate murder of a large number of people by government agents. Examples are shooting of unarmed protesters, lobbing of grenades into prison cells, and random execution of civilians. Other examples of state-sponsored mass murder include:

By terrorist organizations

Many terrorist groups in recent times have used the tactic of killing many victims to fulfill their political aims. Such incidents have included the Beirut barracks bombings in October 1983 by IJO, the Başbağlar attack by the PKK in 1993, the September 11 attacks in September 2001 and the 2004 Madrid train bombings in May 2004 by Al-Qaeda, and the November 2015 Paris attacks in November 2015 by ISIL.

By cults

Certain cults, especially religious cults, have committed a number of mass killings and mass murder-suicides. These include Jim Jones' Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana, where 919 people died in 1978; David Koresh's Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, where 87 died in 1993; the Order of the Solar Temple in Canada, Switzerland, and France, where 75 died in 1994, 1995, and 1997; Shoko Asahara's Aum Shinrikyo, which killed 12 in Tokyo, Japan, in 1995; Marshall Applewhite's Heaven's Gate in San Diego, California, where 39 died in 1997; and the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God in Uganda, where 778 died in 2000.

By individuals

Student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and injured several others on Virginia Tech's campus in 2007.

Examples of mass murderers include King Dipendra of Nepal,[12] Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, Anders Behring Breivik, Timothy McVeigh, Jack Gilbert Graham, Adam Lanza, Stephen Paddock,Seung-Hui Cho, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, Robert Steinhäuser, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, Matti Juhani Saari, Thomas Watt Hamilton, Tim Kretschmer, Marc Lépine, Aaron Alexis, William Unek, Campo Elías Delgado, Jeff Weise, Michael McLendon, Woo Bum-kon, Martin Bryant, Ahmed Ibragimov, Baruch Goldstein, Robert Bales, Jared Lee Loughner, Omar Thornton, James Huberty, Andrew Kehoe, Christopher Harper-Mercer, Charles Whitman, George Hennard, Omar Mateen, Nidal Malik Hasan, James Holmes, Dylann Roof,[13] Andreas Lubitz,[14] and Elliot Rodger.[15]

Acting on the orders of Joseph Stalin, Vasili Blokhin's war crime killing of 7,000 Polish prisoners of war, shot in 28 days, is notable as one of the most organized and protracted mass murders by a single individual on record.[16]

Law enforcement response and countermeasures

Analysis of the Columbine High School massacre and other incidents where law enforcement officers waited for backup has resulted in changed recommendations regarding what victims, bystanders, and law enforcement officers should do. Average response time by law enforcement to a mass shooting is typically much longer than the time the shooter is engaged in killing. While immediate action may be extremely dangerous, it may save lives which would be lost if victims and bystanders involved in the situation remain passive, or law enforcement response is delayed until overwhelming force can be deployed. It is recommended that victims and bystanders involved in the incident take active steps to flee, hide, or fight the shooter and that law enforcement officers present or first arriving at the scene attempt immediately to engage the shooter. In many instances, immediate action by victims, bystanders, or law enforcement officers has saved lives.[17]

Criticism of the analytical category "mass murder"

Commentators have pointed out that there are a wide variety of ways that homicides with more than several victims might be classified. Such incidents can be, and have been even in recent decades, classified many different ways including "as a mass shooting; as a school shooting; as mass murder; as workplace violence...; as a crime involving an assault rifle; as a case of a mentally ill person committing acts of violence; and so on."[18]

How such rarely occurring incidents of homicide are classified tends to change significantly with time. "In the 1960s and 1970s,... it was understood that the key feature of [a number of such] cases was a high body count. These early discussions of mass murder lumped together [a variety of] cases that varied along what would come to be seen as important dimensions:

  • Time: Did the killings occur more or less simultaneously, or did they extend over several days, months, or years?
  • Place: Did the killings occur in a single location, or in a variety of places?
  • Method: How were the victims killed?"[18]

In the late decades of the 20th century and early years of the 2000s, the most popular classifications moved to include method, time and place. While such classifications may assist in gaining human meaning, as human-selected categories, they can also carry significant meaning and reflect a particular point of view of the commentator who assigned the descriptor.[18]

See also

References

  1. ^ Duwe, Grant (2007). Mass Murder in the United States. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-7864-3150-2.
  2. ^ }}Aggrawal, A. (2005). "Mass Murder". In Payne-James JJ; Byard RW; Corey TS; Henderson C (eds.). Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine (PDF). Vol. 3. Elsevier Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-12-547970-7. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  3. ^ Kluger, Jeffrey (April 19, 2007). "Inside a Mass Murderer's Mind". Time. Archived from the original on April 22, 2007. Retrieved May 12, 2010. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ "ABC News: What Pushes Shooters to Mass Murder?". Abcnews.go.com. 2008-02-09. Retrieved 2012-03-07.
  5. ^ "Notoriety Drives Mass Shooters". Newser. Retrieved 2012-03-07.
  6. ^ "ABC News: Psychiatrist: Showing Video Is 'Social Catastrophe'". Abcnews.go.com. 2007-04-19. Retrieved 2012-03-07.
  7. ^ Mark Aarons (2007). "Justice Betrayed: Post-1945 Responses to Genocide." In David A. Blumenthal and Timothy L. H. McCormack (eds). The Legacy of Nuremberg: Civilising Influence or Institutionalised Vengeance? (International Humanitarian Law). Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. ISBN 9004156917 pp. 80–81.
  8. ^ McSherry, J. Patrice (2011). "Chapter 5: "Industrial repression" and Operation Condor in Latin America". In Esparza, Marcia; Henry R. Huttenbach; Daniel Feierstein (eds.). State Violence and Genocide in Latin America: The Cold War Years (Critical Terrorism Studies). Routledge. p. 107. ISBN 0415664578.
  9. ^ The Secrets in Guatemala’s Bones. The New York Times. June 30, 2016.
  10. ^ R.J. Rummel. Chapter 1: 61,911,000 Victims: Utopianism Empowered
  11. ^ Akbar, Arifa (17 September 2010). "Mao's Great Leap Forward 'killed 45 million in four years'". The Independent. London. Retrieved 20 September 2010.
  12. ^ "Nepal royal family massacred". BBC News. June 2, 2001
  13. ^ Farhi, Paul (December 20, 2012). "Adam Lanza, and others who committed mass shootings, were white males". The Washington Post.
  14. ^ Mendick, Robert. "Andreas Lubitz: inside the mind of a mass killer". The Telegraph.
  15. ^ 2014 Isla Vista killings
  16. ^ Sebag Montefiore, Simon (2004). Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. Knopf. p. 334. ISBN 1-4000-4230-5.
  17. ^ Erica Goode (April 6, 2013). "In Shift, Police Advise Taking an Active Role to Counter Mass Attacks". The New York Times. Retrieved April 7, 2013.
  18. ^ a b c Best, Joel (2013-06-16). "How Should We Classify the Sandy Hook Killings? : The social construction of a mass shooting epidemic". Reason. Retrieved 2013-06-18. it is possible to characterize Newtown as an instance of a lot of different social problems: as a mass shooting; as a school shooting; as mass murder; as workplace violence (remember the staff members who were killed were at work); as a crime involving an assault rifle; as a case of a mentally ill person committing acts of violence; and so on. We expect journalists to have a sort of sociological imagination, to help us understand incidents as instances. And we can understand why advocates for gun control, mental health, or other causes might favor particular labels but we need to appreciate there is no One True Classification, that the categories we use are merely tools that may help us better understand what [is] happening in our society.

External links

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