American Sociopath
Mass shooters, domestic violence, and the lure of military and law enforcement careers.
What’s your reaction every time you hear of a gunman opening fire in a public area, killing unarmed civilians in the United States?
It’s sad to say that I wasn’t surprised and barely reacted at all when I heard about the 17-year-old aspiring police officer shooting protesters in Kenosha. And I really wasn’t taken aback when I heard he was a straight white male with a record of violence against women, racism, and sociopathic tendencies.
According to an Everytown for Gun Safety analysis, 156 mass shootings occurred between 2009 and 2016. 54% of those shootings were related to domestic violence.
In The Sociopath Next Door, psychologist Martha Stout reveals that 1 in 25 people in the US identifies with the traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder – essentially a person who possesses no conscience, shame, guilt, or remorse.
The key difference between a sociopath and a psychopath is that psychopaths hurt people and find pleasure in inflicting pain, much like Jeffrey Dahmer and traits found in Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD). Sociopaths inflict pain and then seek pity, thereby weaponizing victimization when they’re the real perpetrators.
To highlight the significance of identifying APD early, Jeffrey Dahmer was in the Army from 1978-1981. In recent years it has come to light that he held hostage and raped a roommate repeatedly, and raped other soldiers as well. Soldiers regarded him as an aggressively racist alcoholic, but the signs and symptoms were evident for years. The Army discharged him with an honorable discharge despite evidence of abusive behavior.
NPD and APD
We could get into another rabbit hole of neurobiological predispositions for patriarchal interpersonal terror by breaking down the mutation of monoamine oxidase A (MAOA), a gene encoding enzyme responsible for the breakdown of the neurotransmitters norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine, which have been proven to affect males more disposed to antisocial and sociopathic traits. But we’re beyond having a merely preventative chat.
We’re not taking the rise of normalizing American Sociopaths seriously as both a cultural and mental health crisis. Take a look at the following charts for Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD):
Ask yourself, “are either conditions appropriate for professions that involve firearms access and authority over others in any sense of the word?”
There is nothing, at present, to prevent people with antisocial or narcissistic traits from entering military service or law enforcement - and these disorders are what everyone needs to worry about most when it comes to domestic terror, institutionalized aggression, and interpersonal violence.
The Militarization of US Law Enforcement
There’s a common misconception in the military that your average soldier needs to have some sort of pathological trait that makes it “okay” to kill, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Compartmentalization, unit cohesion, integrity, and empathy are present in the most effective leaders - whether lower-enlisted or higher-ranking officers.
The idea of a person killing indiscriminately is not only dangerous in a theater of war, but it also costs DOD and VA in the long run - not to mention having equipped antisocial and narcissistic males with firearms experience.
It puts everyone at risk, once again circling back to the idea that psychological evaluations should not only be a requirement for military service but any profession that provides access to marginalized communities - especially law enforcement.
“We worship the post-9/11 U.S. military operator. We are a nation drunk on its own “tacticool” culture.”
What makes the glorification of “tacticool” apparel and gear appear as red flags is the undercurrent of amplified narcissistic and antisocial traits as badges of honor. The cruelty is the point. This undoubtedly extends into US-based law enforcement and has been quite evident in police responses in Ferguson, Standing Rock, and recent BLM protests.
Any opportunity for a Battlestar Galactica quote.
It’s particularly notable that since the launch of the Global War on Terror in 2001 that U.S. police forces have been replacing the image of the LEO walking the beat to a heavily armed and masked soldier. Military-grade weapons and equipment are normalized through “tacticool” culture while ordinary citizens are being repackaged as enemy combatants.
Authoritarian Vocations
Military service and law enforcement are authoritarian vocations when looking at it from a macro perspective. And like other authoritarian vocations - whether it’s law enforcement or clergy - it gives one access to vulnerable populations.
Considering the colonial history of the Americas, including the United States, lashing out in catastrophically violent ways is part of this region’s history of colonial, Neanderthalesque tendencies to exert force upon a population without any sense of introspection, remorse, or long-term understanding.
There’s a good reason why these predominantly white male shooters aren’t being branded as terrorists - we’re living in an age of white supremacist Neo-Fascism blooming right in our own backyard.
The ideological indoctrination of mass shooters and alt-Right terrorists is coming from a much bigger cultural movement that permeates military and law enforcement communities.
We have a toxic masculinity crisis in America. We have a gun crisis in America. We have a white supremacy problem in America.
Military personnel, particularly those who are combat arms and/or were exposed to direct combat operations are not trained to kill at random; but the lure of glory, ability to kill, and exert power over others are intoxicating lures for those with NPD and APD to the profession.
LEOs, on the other hand, exist as personnel directed to serve and protect their communities - not to identify its citizens as enemy combatants. However, with cop dramas glorifying policing, the militarization of domestic police units, and the inescapable images of LEOs abusing minorities also serve as an enticing opiate to those with narcissist and/or antisocial tendencies.
As an Iraq war veteran who provided direct mental health outreach, I can say with certainty that our biggest problems in theater outside of insurgents were personnel who never should’ve deployed or been allowed into military service in the first place - and APD and NPD were the primary culprits.
Personnel who we did have to evacuate for mental health reasons not only met the criteria for severe mental illness that was pre-existing, but they were often referred to us for random acts of violence, insubordination, and putting their units at risk due to their impulsive, thoughtless behavior.
For example, in 2005 we had one soldier immediately evacuated out of Ramadi, Iraq since he was intentionally firing at unarmed civilians. He was a turret gunner and even admitted to thinking it was “absolutely hilarious” to terrorize women and children trying to cross the street. Considering his response wasn’t anything new, that should’ve set off more alarm bells about extremist behavior in the military - but US Armed Forces have permitted people like this to thrive until someone takes a stand and forces them out. They should never have been allowed to enlist in the first place.
Rules of Engagement
In the military, there’s repeated training on the Geneva Conventions since Basic Training and Rules of Engagement for U.S. Military Forces prior to deployment. It’s quite clear that we’re not trained to shoot randomly at civilians. Discipline - both personal and professional - is of the utmost importance when entrusted to have the ability to kill, and that’s why a thorough psychological evaluation must happen before entrance into military service, law enforcement, or purchasing a firearm.
Much of the white supremacist, toxic masculinity problem could be at least addressed from the start instead of allowing it to bleed into the ranks and give sociopaths additional training on best practices in felony hate crimes. While prevention might come a bit late - as the FBI warned for years that police have been infiltrated by far-Right, white supremacists - direct action needs to happen before the US descends into a Fascist police state. Considering the US and the former Soviet Union were the major anti-fascist forces in WWII, who will save us from ourselves now?
The correlation between mass shootings and domestic abuse
One study on war-related PTSD and prevalence rates of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) found that male veterans with PTSD had a 27.5 percent rate against female partners versus 12.7 percent for civilian men. Other studies suggest that those who see the most combat/violence on deployment are less likely to commit violence against others. At present, studies show that at least 40 percent of women married to police officers face domestic violence.
The concept of men being prone to violence has less to do with military or police training and far more to do with who they were before and during their service. This goes right back to the original points on antisocial and narcissistic traits and identifying these traits prior to gaining access to military or LEO training.
So how do we immediately spot APD and NPD, whether in the military veteran community, law enforcement, or the general public? The key characteristics as identified in DSM-V and The Sociopath Next Door are:
Charisma: the ability to deceive and manipulate emotions. They appear intense and grandiose while possessing little to no empathy or sympathy.
A fragile sense of identity - which is characteristic of Personality Disorders - and a weak sense of intimacy.
"When sociopathy and blood lust come together in the same person, the result is a dramatic -- even a cinematic -- nightmare, a horror figure who seems larger than life," Stout states in a chapter entitled "Ice People."
It doesn’t matter if this is a lower-enlisted servicemember or a draft-dodging president, sociopaths are a danger to society and even more so when given access to means to inflict great harm at the expense of others for the sake of feeding a fragile ego and a weak sense of identity that is far more fit for an inpatient psychiatric ward than any place in the military, law enforcement, or public office.
The problem with Personality Disorders is that they’re so difficult to treat. Unlike PTSD or Major Depressive Disorder, Personality Disorders exhibit a level of ambivalence that is incredibly difficult to overcome due to the reluctance to even consider their behavior is actually a problem.
Throughout my time as a young Army mental health specialist to now as a Licensed Social Worker, I still don’t know many mental health providers who willingly work with Personality Disorder diagnoses because the work is far more exhausting, and this isn’t due to any other mental health disorder.
Symptoms come and go, but pathological personality traits are long-term and less likely to change. Psychosis, panic attacks, and bouts of depression or anxiety can be sporadic and transient. But personality is rooted in your sense of identity. This stems from upbringing, environmental stimuli, and culture, and is far more intrinsic to an individual than a temporary, treatable symptom.
The bigger, and more pressing question is:
How long do we allow the rise of narcissistic and antisocial culture, enabling a Fascist police state, before we react?
The answers lie in the state of our institutions, law enforcement, domestic violence rates, as well as our foreign policy and culture of accountability. If you’re honest with yourself, you can see that the prognosis - as long as it goes untreated - doesn’t bode well for our collective future. As a nation, the United States is a bit late to the anti-fascist party, but the time to react is now.
