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Lone Wolf: True Stories Of Spree Killers
Names like Timothy McVeigh send a shiver down our spines. Since the late 1980s, cases of lone men embarking on sprees of brutal and indiscriminate killing have been on the increase. What is behind this chilling new trend? What drives these men – and it is always men – to turn on friends, family and strangers in acts of senseless rage and slaughter? An updated edition of the first mass- market book to cover the topic of lone killers, featuring a new chapter on Timothy McVeigh.
261 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 13, 2021
Spree killers use a weapon to attack multiple people in a short time frame. This book details a few of those attacks, and tries to see if there is a discernable pattern. Fairly interesting, but not engrossing.
3 Stars = Okay. Glad I read it.
3 Stars = Okay. Glad I read it.
August 19, 2017
The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics defines a spree killing as "killings at two or more locations with almost no time break between murders". According to the FBI, the general definition of spree killer is a person (or more than one person) who commits two or more murders without a cooling-off period; the lack of a cooling-off period marks the difference between a spree killer and a serial killer. Serial killers commit clearly separate murders, happening at different times. Mass murderers are defined by one incident, with no distinctive time period between the murders. This author, I feel, hardly focuses on true spree killers, instead focusing more on terrorists, seeking political redress from even imagined persecution. Also, there are more mass murderers than true spree killers, in my opinion.
* The Hungerford massacre series of random shootings in Hungerford, Berkshire, United Kingdom, on 19 August 1987 by Michael Robert Ryan fits the spree killing definition well. The unemployed antique dealer and handyman fatally shot 16 people before taking his own life. The shootings, committed using a handgun and two semi-automatic rifles, occurred at several locations, including a school he had once attended. This also to me fits the old of spree killers of mentally unbalanced individuals challenging society's access to weaponry
* Thomas Hamilton, perpetrator of the Dunblane massacre, at Dunblane Primary School killed 16 children and one teacher before committing suicide. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in British history and occurred at one location, really. Public debate about the killings centred on gun control laws, including public petitions calling for a ban on private ownership of handguns and an official inquiry, which produced the 1996 Cullen Reports. In response to this debate, two new Firearms Acts were passed, which greatly restricted private ownership of firearms in Great Britain. This book goes little into the gun rights issues - actually overtly avoids them - essential to mass shootings.
* Benjamin Nathaniel Smith may have been a spree killer, but this member of the neo-Nazi World Church of the Creator that targeted members of racial and ethnic minorities in random drive-by shootings in Illinois and Indiana is a terrorist mass murder by my book.
* Mark Orrin Barton (Here given the middle name "Orris") was a spree killer from Stockbridge, Georgia, who killed 12 people and injured 13 more on July 29, 1999. The murders occurred at Barton's own house and at two Atlanta day trading firms that had previously employed Barton as a day trader, Momentum Securities and the All-Tech Investment Group. It is believed that Barton was motivated by large financial losses during the previous two months.
* The 1999 Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting occurred on August 10, 1999, at around 10:50 a.m. PT, when white supremacist Buford O. Furrow, Jr. walked into the lobby of the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills and opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon, firing 70 shots into the complex. The gunfire wounded five people: three children, a teenage counselor, and an office worker. Shortly thereafter, Furrow murdered a mail carrier, fled the state, and finally surrendered to authorities. Again, a racist terrorist more than merely a spree killer.
* Martin Bryant's spree killings in Australia leading to that country's cathartic gun regulations and mass gun destruction is one of the most interesting cases here, including the conspiracy theories that it was a setup in order to control guns.
* Larry Gene Ashbrook was an American mass murderer who killed seven people and injured a further seven at a post See You at the Pole Rally featuring a concert by Christian rock group Forty Days before committing suicide. One location; mentally unstable mass murderer.
* Timothy McVeigh was neither a lone wolf, he was a conspiracy participant and a one-location mass murdered terrorist. This is the only one the author admits to not fitting the definition.
This lack of focus undercuts the author's analysis of paternal issues, gun loving, and lack of stable sexual relationship, etc. That may fit the author's hand-picked selection, but the selection isn't pure spree killers.
* The Hungerford massacre series of random shootings in Hungerford, Berkshire, United Kingdom, on 19 August 1987 by Michael Robert Ryan fits the spree killing definition well. The unemployed antique dealer and handyman fatally shot 16 people before taking his own life. The shootings, committed using a handgun and two semi-automatic rifles, occurred at several locations, including a school he had once attended. This also to me fits the old of spree killers of mentally unbalanced individuals challenging society's access to weaponry
* Thomas Hamilton, perpetrator of the Dunblane massacre, at Dunblane Primary School killed 16 children and one teacher before committing suicide. It remains the deadliest mass shooting in British history and occurred at one location, really. Public debate about the killings centred on gun control laws, including public petitions calling for a ban on private ownership of handguns and an official inquiry, which produced the 1996 Cullen Reports. In response to this debate, two new Firearms Acts were passed, which greatly restricted private ownership of firearms in Great Britain. This book goes little into the gun rights issues - actually overtly avoids them - essential to mass shootings.
* Benjamin Nathaniel Smith may have been a spree killer, but this member of the neo-Nazi World Church of the Creator that targeted members of racial and ethnic minorities in random drive-by shootings in Illinois and Indiana is a terrorist mass murder by my book.
* Mark Orrin Barton (Here given the middle name "Orris") was a spree killer from Stockbridge, Georgia, who killed 12 people and injured 13 more on July 29, 1999. The murders occurred at Barton's own house and at two Atlanta day trading firms that had previously employed Barton as a day trader, Momentum Securities and the All-Tech Investment Group. It is believed that Barton was motivated by large financial losses during the previous two months.
* The 1999 Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting occurred on August 10, 1999, at around 10:50 a.m. PT, when white supremacist Buford O. Furrow, Jr. walked into the lobby of the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills and opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon, firing 70 shots into the complex. The gunfire wounded five people: three children, a teenage counselor, and an office worker. Shortly thereafter, Furrow murdered a mail carrier, fled the state, and finally surrendered to authorities. Again, a racist terrorist more than merely a spree killer.
* Martin Bryant's spree killings in Australia leading to that country's cathartic gun regulations and mass gun destruction is one of the most interesting cases here, including the conspiracy theories that it was a setup in order to control guns.
* Larry Gene Ashbrook was an American mass murderer who killed seven people and injured a further seven at a post See You at the Pole Rally featuring a concert by Christian rock group Forty Days before committing suicide. One location; mentally unstable mass murderer.
* Timothy McVeigh was neither a lone wolf, he was a conspiracy participant and a one-location mass murdered terrorist. This is the only one the author admits to not fitting the definition.
This lack of focus undercuts the author's analysis of paternal issues, gun loving, and lack of stable sexual relationship, etc. That may fit the author's hand-picked selection, but the selection isn't pure spree killers.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews