“Culture of Grievance” and the New Domestic Terrorism



by Bill Fancher and Jody Brown

(AgapePress) – A research group that studies the violent tendencies of killers says there is a correlation between someone like Timothy McVeigh and kids who shoot their classmates and teachers.

Lt. Col. (Ret) Dave Grossman is founder of the Killology Research Group, an Arkansas-based organization that examines how culture and society change when one human being kills another. Grossman, a former West Point psychology professor and Army Ranger, is one of the world’s foremost experts in the field of human aggression, the roots of violence, and violent crime. He says there is a dangerous link between the actions of men like McVeigh and “school shooters.”

“We've been telling people nationwide that the primary difference between a school shooter and workplace shooter is the age,” Grossman says. “What we've got when we look at … workplace shootings and … school shootings is a new form of domestic terrorism.”

Grossman, who taught combat soldiers how to kill, has studied shooting incidents from across the United States over the past few years. He says he has found a disturbing attitude among those who perpetrated the shootings: “They believe that they've been wronged and they're going to make you feel their pain.”

“We have a culture of grievance, a culture of entitlement, a culture of vengeance, and a culture of death,” he says. “The media violence is fed to the children at the very youngest age. They're being taught that they're entitled to things … they've got a powerful sense that when things go wrong, they're going to make you feel their pain.”

According to Grossman, while McVeigh's execution last week may have brought an end to the tragedy of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, it has not cured the problem which led to the incident. He says the culture that created McVeigh is still embraced.

“[G]ood kids today are probably better than they've been in a long, long time. The teenage pregnancy rate is down, the teenage drug use rate is down, there's some powerful spiritual movement afoot in our youth,” he says. “But the kids who are 'bad' are far worse than they've ever been before. [They are] committing mass murder. Those that have sold out to the culture are quite frightening.”

Grossman offers some sobering words. He says he worries that our culture is creating more Timothy McVeighs who are waiting for their chance to strike back at society. Until the current “culture of death” is changed, he says, we can expect more scenes like Oklahoma City. He predicts when the next recession hits, there will be an explosion of workplace violence in America like nothing seen before. In fact, he fears it may already too late to alter that.

(Ed. Note: Our means of confronting the spreading culture of death, of course, is prayer, working to spread the Gospel message, and separating ourselves and our families from the prevailing media and entertainment culture.)


(This update courtesy of Agape Press.)

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