This mystery is dark and deep, as it is demanding for the fast and the efficient answers.

The question is: Are the mass shootings a spontaneous social phenomenon, as a reflection of the various social and psychological pressures or is it the man-made phenomenon, produced and performed by design, as for example, in the hypothetical hostile Intelligence or the Organised Crime type of the operations which they do very much look like, in their common features? The approaches to study of these completely different phenomena will also be very different: you can try to discern some patterns in the natural phenomena but the man-made phenomena cannot be studied statistically, since there no natural correlations. They require completely different, not the quantitative but the qualitative types of the analysis and research, which makes it the subject of the Hermeneutic (Interpretative) Criminological enterprise.

These mass shootings do have quite significant demoralizing effect on the Society (and that exactly what their purpose is, to induce fear and uncertainty), and they have to be taken seriously. They have to be studied from the correct methodological perspectives.

If it is a man-made phenomenon, it becomes the area of concern for the Counterintelligence Services, to put it briefly and up to the point. Of course, everything is easier said than done, and the opponent is quite sophisticated despite the “exhibitionistic ham-handedness”. I wish I could give some specific advice but I cannot, this mystery is dark and deep, as it is demanding for the fast and the efficient answers.

M.N.

11.8.18