The sociology of shootings

In 1999, the sociologist Katherine Newman -- then at Harvard, now at Princeton -- was tapped by the National of Academy of Sciences (itself tapped by Congress) to investigate the phenomenon of school shootings. She has an essay [$] in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education that, while offering few surprises or answers, is nevertheless authoritative and clarifying:

It's subscriber-only, but here's a sample:

School shooters are problem solvers. They are trying to turn the reputations they live with as losers into something more glamorous, more notorious. Seung-Hui Cho, a student of creative writing, probably didn't get a lot of "street cred" for his artistic side.... When their daily social experience--created by their own ineptness, and often by the rejection of their peers--is one of disappointment and friction, they want to reverse their social identities. How do they go about it? Sadly, becoming violent, going out in a blaze of glory, and ending it all by taking other people with them is one script that plays out in popular culture and provides a road map for notoriety.

Depression is endemic in these young men. Indeed, it can be so bad that they want to die. Why, then, don't they throw themselves in front of trains? That is the wimp's way out ... by taking dozens of other people with him, [Cho] insured his notorious place in history and found a way to set the record straight: He was a man to be reckoned with.

Newman and her co-authors reported the findings of their investigations in Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings.

UPDATE: The essay is now available to non-subscribers. The link above works, too.