General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: What is it in the psychological make up of honor students that causes a small percentage [View all]backscatter712
(26,355 posts)People don't "just snap". These things build for a long time.
One article I dug up suggested that it can be any combination of stressors. Bad home, bad parenting, disabilities, bullying, bad boss at work, fights with the spouse or significant other. These things build up for years, and then something happens - a bad bullying incident, or a firing from a job, or a divorce, or some humiliation, that turns the chronic strain into an acute situation that causes this person to crack. In these cases, there's almost always a planning stage, where the killer acquires weapons, plans his assault, and usually leaks out hints that he's about to go postal. Finally, there's the attack...
http://jacklevinonviolence.com/articles/abslevin.pdf
Amazing what you can dig up by searching in scholar.google.com. Especially if you're a college student with access to most of the paywalled articles through your university library.
Thom Hartmann was talking about this kind of thing yesterday. Not directly referencing this article, but mentioning that with our country having a record level of inequality, a culture where "kicking people while they're down" is tolerated and encouraged, and people are struggling to eat and pay bills, well, that turns the stress level up, and some people are likely to crack.