In Binghamton, N.Y., a Vietnamese immigrant upset
about losing his job burst into an immigration center
and killed 13 people before killing himself. In
Pittsburgh, police said a gun enthusiast recently
discharged from the Marine Corps opened fire and
killed three police officers. And in Graham, Wash.,
investigators said a man whose wife was leaving him
shot and killed five of his children in their mobile
home before taking his own life.
The carnage that occurred during less than 48 hours
last week capped a recent string of unusually brazen
mass killings, which crime experts say have touched
more people and occurred in more public settings
than in any time in recent memory. Comparative
statistics are difficult to come by, but during the past
month alone, at least eight mass homicides in this
country have claimed the lives of 57 people. Just
yesterday, four people were discovered shot to death
in a modest wood-frame home in a remote Alabama
town.
The factor underlying the violence, some experts think,
is the dismal state of the nation's economy.
Criminologists theorize that the epidemic of layoffs,
the meltdown of storied American corporations and
the uncertainty of recovery have stoked fear, anxiety
and desperation across society and unnerved its
most vulnerable and dangerous.
