Trigger Points: Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in America

Mother Jones journalist Follman debuts with an engrossing and surprisingly hopeful look at the field of behavioral threat assessment and how it is being used to prevent mass shootings. Drawing on interviews with mental health experts and criminologists seeking to identify the “warning behaviors” perpetrators exhibit before an attack, Follman spotlights clinical psychologist Robert Fein, who in 1976 began working with inmates at Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane near Boston. Following the assassination of John Lennon, the U.S. Secret Service turned to Fein and his mentor, psychiatrist Shervert Frazier, to produce the “definitive study on mentally ill assassins.” Detailing their findings and those of other threat assessment practitioners, Follman discusses how heavy media coverage of mass shootings and high-profile assassinations fosters “emulation behavior” among potential assailants, documents how the spread of “entrenched political and ideological views” online fuels violent extremism, and explains how “early intervention and a less outwardly harsh response” can stop disgruntled employees from killing their coworkers. He also delves into the legal and logistical complications of trying to identify and thwart would-be assailants and speaks with victims of mass shootings. Full of intriguing case studies and examples of the “promise and limitations” of threat assessment, this is an optimistic take on one of America’s most distressing problems. (Mar.)