A reporter who covered the Columbine high school massacre responds to the question of whether there are similarities with the Fort Hood attack.
The Ft. Hood perpetrator appears pretty transparent. The “obvious” factors include:
His religion
His ethnicity
The ridicule he endured for each
His profession as a soldier
His profession as a psychiatrist
His exposure to guns
Relentless exposure to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in his patients
Opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
Imminent deployment thereWe have heard a lot of facts related to each of those factors already. I expect that most will turn to be true. Historically, we get the what right pretty fast. But we have a terrible record on why. An oddsmaker could reasonably predict that some of those items will prove relevant and others true but unrelated to the crime. The problem is predicting which is which.
If we guess now, the myths will be us forever. Ten years after Columbine, most of the public still believes it was about jocks, Goths and the Trench Coat Mafia. No, no and no.
