Fascinating Proposed Classification

Clinical Psychologist & PhD Peter Langman takes 10 sample cases of School Mass Shooters to exemplify a list of three categories of responsible individual: Psychopaths (egocentric, self-serving sociopaths), Psychotics (mentally ill), and "Traumatized" (PTSD-driven emotional wrecks).
He argues that these are first and foremost DISTURBED teenagers - not *normal* kids that were driven to act by loneliness, bullying, too-easily-available guns, etc. Langman uses DSM-IV criteria for Psychiatric Diseases and Personality Disorders in a well-reasoned attempt to stratify perpetrators. It's well-written, thought-provoking, and richly colored with impressively-researched illustrative witness interviews and patient writings (he clearly went DEEP into the forensic evidence to mine anecdotes).
Less fortunately, the structure is somewhat scattershot (I don't think that I could write an outline for a syllabus if this was offered as a course), and some of his contributive posits are a bit of a stretch (Dylan Klebold mimicking Manson-followers, for example).

The distinctly "adequate" presentation is a little bit disappointing, too. Don't get me wrong, Matthew Josdal turns in a creditable performance (his diction, cadence, and tone are commendable).. but Josdal's persistent natural sibilance is occasionally overwhelming, and Tantor Audio engineers sometimes fail to mix spliced/re-recorded segments into the recording seamlessly. Overall, it's not a *bad* listening experience per se.. it's just that I've heard better.

Altogether, 'Kids That Kill' merits 7/10-stars. As a 'Plus' selection, the audiobook was a great cerebral way to spend a couple of frozen afternoons.. but even if you're invested/interested in Psychology, spend your Credit on something else should they ask for one.

[NOTE: the final couple of Chapters - where Langman applies his paradigm to understand "near-miss" teenagers that were committed before they might have carried out tragedies - are riveting]

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Great arguments and faulty conclusions

The book was very good, overall pretty accurate and recognizes its own mis-steps (ex. There is a slight error regarding the columbine shooting — he cites Eric Harris as saying “peekaboo” before shooting someone in the library, this never happened — he mentioned that there might be some errors in this regard at the start of the book). The arguments are good, and overall the descriptions are good, and I think that it provides a great reference from the psychological point of view, but it is a little too sanctioned within the psychology discipline, and discounts the social factors that contribute to school shootings. It also over-simplifies “trauma” and the impact it has on someone, as well, it does not consider that trauma, or a traumatic situation might look different and greatly vary from person to person. As someone who studies columbine and other school shootings from a criminological point of view, I personally found the description of Dylan Klebold quite accurate, but I do not agree with the categorization that this author puts him under (and after chatting with someone who knew Dylan personally, and another Columbine Researcher, we both disagree and find that this book ignores various other factors that contributed to his crimes, and over-simplifies the impact of rejection, anger and trauma on him (and eric)) as well as ignores that someone can easily perceive rejection, with or without the actual existence of rejection (rejection sensitive dysphoria) and the MASSIVE impact it has on how someone can view themselves, and how they believe other view him. It is clear that Dylan did not see himself how others saw him, as most of the people who knew him, reported positive association with Klebold prior to the shooting. I don’t believe this makes someone delusional or psychotic, it’s a clear symptom of other disorders including ADHD.

I appreciate the end of the book when it explains possible ways to prevent school shootings, I think the options given are really great and should absolutely be considered.

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1 person found this helpful