Photo: i.imgur.com
On the night of October 25-26, a mass shooting occurred in the American town of Lewiston, Maine. According to various sources, as a result of this, about 20 people were killed and from 18 to 65 were injured.
According to preliminary information, the police have a suspect – a 40-year-old man named Robert Card. He opened fire with a rifle first at a local bar and then at a bowling alley.
Card is a former firearms instructor. He was also in the reserve of the US Armed Forces. It is known that the man had a mental disorder. He "heard voices" and before this event had already threatened to arrange a shooting at the US National Guard facility in Sako. The man was already in a psychiatric hospital, and most recently, in the summer of this year, he was released.
The Lewiston shooting was the 565th mass shooting in the United States in 2023. According to NBC News, the death toll in this tragedy is almost equal to the average annual number of shooting victims in the entire state. The mass shooting in Maine was the largest in terms of the number of deaths among all cases of armed violence in the United States this year.
The problem of shooting
The phenomenon, which was called "shooting" or "schoolshooting" (which translates from English as "shooting / shooting at school"), in the modern world began to spread not only in the West.
Some of the most famous cases:
- in 1999, at Columbine School in the USA, two teenagers killed 15 and injured 21 people;
- in Moscow's Otradnoye in 2014, a high school student killed a teacher and held the class hostage for several hours (this was the beginning of the history of schoolshooting in Russia)
After analyzing such cases, scientists stated that the main motives for 75% of the incidents were bullying classmates at school. Such protests were not spontaneous decisions of the shooters, they were carefully planned and prepared in advance.
The root of the problem
The origins of evil consist of several factors. Of great importance is both the microclimate – the family and the conditions in which the child is brought up, and the macroclimate – society and other external factors affecting the formation of the psyche. Also important are a person's self-esteem, relationships with others, and the degree of acceptance by society. After the spread of joking among teenagers, the range of reasons that led a person to such an act increased. In the investigations of these cases, the name of the shooter always appears, his whole story is told. Therefore, it should not be ruled out that someone is doing terrible things for the sake of universal recognition and fame.
Effects mass shooting
Shooting always leads to the loss of the lives of innocent people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This event affects not only one person, his family and friends, but also the whole city and even the state. Unfortunately, such an incident cannot be predicted and it is impossible to determine in advance where it may occur. The fear of the level of violence seen can leave a long imprint on the psyche of eyewitnesses and the victims themselves, which will certainly affect their daily lives. This is expressed in increased anxiety, fear and can even lead to a mental disorder. Such incidents certainly affect the level of public confidence in the state. When such a terrible event occurs, people stop feeling protected and begin to avoid public places with a large crowd of people.
