During a brief, unenlightened, period we believed we could deal with the school shooter by condemning him. Now, of course, that approach is recognized as hopelessly naive. These days we have a much better means of banishing this monster from our midst: we simply ignore him.
One recent theory, bandied about even in academic circles, is that the school shooter is simply a glory hound out for recognition through notoriety and that the means of stopping him lies in depriving him of media coverage, denying him power through recognition. The phenomenon, starved of this vital attention, will simply wither and die. The Classroom Avenger will simply "go away".
Well, best of luck with that tactic. I'm tempted to sit back and watch as it fails miserably, but doing so would be at the cost of young lives, a commodity we squander all too often with this irresponsible thinking.
The assumption that these atrocities are motivated by mere vanity is a simplistic theory that shows how little we understand, or are prepared to understand, the torments and tortures wielded and experienced by our own young.
It's fairly obvious that our schools are under assault by two different types of killer. The first is the original "Avenger": a youngster driven by pain, rage or even outrage to lash out at a world they believe to be attacking them at a multitude of levels. This type of killer - still being created by education - brought school shootings into existence before they became fashionable. The second is the "Copycat Avenger": a product of the post-Columbine generation, who has grown up with the likes of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as cultural figures, heroes even. Historical precedent has shown these youngsters that letting rip with an assault rifle in class is not so much a method of airing your grievances as it is a fast track to immortality (the same, or similar thinking probably lies behind most copycat serial killers).
Doubtless, this is an oversimplification of what drives of the copycat avenger - indeed, even the most shallow, self-obsessed minds are reluctant to throw their lives away for vanity alone - but it does illustrate the essential difference between these youngsters and the originals that inspired them. The problem comes from confusing the motivations of the two and the means of dealing with them. Ignoring the copycat shooter might well diminish the number of killings in our schools but it will have no effect on the original avenger who is out for blood, not recognition.
So why is it such a popular theory?
Because it keeps our hands clean. If the Classroom Avenger is simply a monster seeking glorification then we have no culpability in his creation; we haven't allowed our schools to become battlegrounds of brutality where certain youngsters are so abused they come to see interaction with their peers and authority, as a state of war. We have always embraced the unspoken rule that evil, if it is to be confronted, must first be compartmentalized into an "evil" minority, and that the trail of blame should never lead back to our door. Suggesting that these atrocities might be the result of our society openly embracing attitudes as wrong and destructive as racism is a perspective no-one is prepared to explore.
The greatest challenge we face when trying to get to the root of school shootings lies in doing just that: confronting certain, uncomfortable facts about the "socially acceptable" brutality we allow to shape juvenile interaction in our schools. It's a truth not easily embraced, but we were making progress, at least for a while.
Sadly, the arrival of the copycat avenger has given us an opportunity to avoid facing this. Far from progressing, we are now slipping back into a dark age of ignorance that allows us the luxury of demonizing and ignoring all school shooters without bothering to understand what, and who, brought them into being.
Condemnation is not a valid tool of examination. Demonize cancer and you won't get to the heart of it. Neither is dismissal a true means of analysis and understanding. We are faced with a choice here. We can recognize these ugly truths about our own nature and address this at an educational level. Alternatively, we can accept this convenient and facile theory, and watch, mystified as the killings continue despite all measures brought to bear. I don't favour the latter theory, it will cost young lives, but then, as I said before, perhaps that's not too high a price to pay so long as we can all entertain this most comforting of illusions.