The Alarmingly Common Thread Running Through Almost All of the School Shootings Over the Past 13 Years

Will Maule : Feb 28, 2018
Faithwire.com

"If the nation is serious about ending the scourge of school shootings, it must also get serious about strengthening the families that are our first line of defense in preventing our boys from falling into a downward spiral of rage, hopelessness, or nihilism that can end in senseless violence." -W. Bradford Wilcox

[Faithwire.com] There is an understandable level of outrage that follows something as horrific and evil as a school mass shooting. We've seen calls for the introduction of "common sense" gun control, a picking apart of the shooter's personal life, and a fair amount of political virtue signaling. (Screengrab: Mourners visit a makeshift memorial outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 students and faculty were killed in Parkland, FL/original photo credit: Gerald Herbert/AP)

But amidst all the chaotic analysis, outrage and murky discussion, there is one alarming thread that runs through many of the school shootings that have taken place in the U.S. over the past 13 years.

From 2005 to 2015, 27 of the deadliest mass shootings in America have been committed by young men. And as The Federalist's Peter Hasson noted in 2015, 26 of these 27 men grew up without a father.

The link between young men who have experienced family breakdown and a tendency toward violence is unnerving, and it must be addressed as part of the wider conversation in the wake of the latest mass shooting in Parkland, Florida.

The young man suspected of killing 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School earlier this month also grew up without his biological father, and his adoptive father died when he was young.

One of the most telling examples of this little-known statistic came after California college student Elliot Rodger killed six people and injured 14 others in a 2014 shooting rampage through the streets of Isla Vista. Along with several videos he posted expressing his hatred for women, he released a prolific "manifesto" in which he discusses his parents' divorce and the impact this had on him...

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