Equal Opportunity

We all want a fair shot – women, people of color, LGBTQ folks, individuals of all creeds or none. The truth is that white, male, Christians in Europe and here in the Americas have always enjoyed more equality than anyone else. “Some people are more equal than others,” George Orwell could have written in Animal Farm.

But there are other forms of equal opportunity. Here we are today, 12 weeks and 23 mass shootings into 2023. Today’s mass shooting comes to you from Nashville, Tennessee where a 28yo white woman has murdered three elementary school students and three adults. The sex of the individual is important. Women rarely kill strangers; most often they kill family (their children, their intimates, people they know).

The details around this shooting are still emerging, but what we know is that she was armed to two assault rifles and a side arm. Perhaps she imagined herself a Sarah Conner or Ellen Ripley type movie character, or maybe she was a Lauren Boebert wannabe. It is difficult to imagine what is going on in the minds of murderers.

In medical school, in 1977, our Psychiatry lectures covered suicide and homicide briefly. Our lecturers told us that suicide attempts were three times more common in women than in men but only one third as likely to result in death. Women preferred poison in the form of OTC or prescription medications whereas men preferred guns. The choice of means favored death as the outcome for men. Years later, during my residency and practice I took care of many dozens of suicide attempts, poisonings with OTC and prescription meds and even household poisons. I recall only two deaths; both were young men.

With regards to homicide, the lesson was that men kill both strangers and family; women most often kill people they know – especially family.

The age of the shooter matters too. Shooters below the age of 25 are still maturing – the human brain is not fully myelinated until age 25. Myelination of the frontal lobe pathways is critical for good decision making. I’ve said it before; people younger than 25 shouldn’t have guns except under direct supervision. The armed services disagree with me, of course. And, of course, the mean age for male perpetrators is actually 34. Alas.

There are some forms of equal opportunity that we do not need. 🙁