Why Kids Kill
Inside the Minds of School Shooters

Why Kids Kill is a useful and informative book on the psychological foundations of rampage school shooters, but I would hesitate to categorize it as "a breakthrough analysis of the psychological causes of school shootings." Beyond the obvious fact that no objective observer can truly know what young......more

I feel like this book leaves a lot unsaid. It’s well-researched, don’t get me wrong, and it’s quite a chilling experience, but… with ten “case studies”, I felt roughly 200 pages (discounting the introduction, roughly 10-15 short pages each) simply wasn’t enough to present a comprehensive picture. I c......more

School shootings, and mass shootings in general, have been on the rise in recent years. I was in sixth grade when the shooting at Columbine happened. That was the first mention of a school shooting that I had ever heard of, and now there are so many people just seem to shrug the news off. The actual......more

As you can see, I started reading this book on March 22 and I did not finish it until June 2. It was quite a struggle to read for me. I felt like it was just a lot to mentally process as I was reading. I began reading this book because I saw it on a bookshelf in my English classroom. I immediately w......more

This was an interesting read. Langman does case study examinations of 10 school shooters, dividing them into subtypes: psychotic, psychopathic, and traumatized. His focus is on the psychology of their thought process, and he uses their writings, statements by people close to them, and the facts of th......more