Kellner's argument sounds suspiciously close to the "Boy Crisis" hysteria plastered all over the media about two years ago: Articles upon articles lamenting the lack of academic achievement amongst boys and claiming that classrooms were hostile to the male gender. In an article debunking the "boy crisis" in the Washington Post, Boston University journalism professor Caryl Rivers and Brandeis research scientist Rosalind Chait Barnett said, "Obsessing about a boy crisis or thinking that American teachers are waging a war on boys won't help kids. What will is recognizing that students are individuals."

And Illinois school shooter Steven Kazmierczak was an individual. He didn't fit the school shooter archetype like Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho did — Kazmierczak wasn't really an alienated loner. Yes, he was quiet, but his live-in girlfriend, Jessica Baty, tells a different story of the 27-year-old than you'll hear from N.I.U. officials and various TV news talking heads. In a tearful interview with CNN, Baty explains: "The person I knew...was not the one who did that. He was anything but a monster. He was probably the nicest most caring ever." Baty explains that growing up, Kazmierczak spent time in a group home and at times had cut himself. She also said that he had been on Prozac for anxiety and OCD, but stopped taking it because "it made him feel like a zombie." In the days leading up to the shootings, Baty didn't notice anything alarming. "NIU officials were wrong when they said he was acting erratic," she said.

So what's the takeaway from this heinous occurrence? Sadly, there's no easy explanation for why Kazmierczak did what he did. UCLA professor Kellner suggests stricter gun control laws, and that's a start. What turns a seemingly sweet and quiet guy into a mass murderer, though, isn't something that can be solved through legislation or sweeping, gender-based generalization.

School Shootings The Result Of Crisis Of Masculinity, Gun Culture, Professor Argues [Science Daily]
The Myth Of 'The Boy Crisis' [Washington Post]
University Shooter's Girlfriend: 'I Couldn't Believe It' [CNN]

Earlier: Campus Shooter Was Off His Meds

For every classroom full of kids stunned by their first sounds of real gunfire — "It was like little explosions," one student said — there's a classroom way fuller of kids in a neighborhood that looks like something straight out of The Wire, and a support group full of soldiers' wives who can't get the Army to keep their husbands from beating them, folks for whom those "little explosions" are just like your buzzing refrigerator or whatever the soundtrack to everynight life. I know, I know, boring, but why oh why doesn't anyone ever bother the connection, even rhetorically? That when you can't make sense of an act of violence, let it remind you of those you can make sense of?

"No Red Flags" Before Campus Shooting [Washington Post]
Steve Kazmierczak Profile
When Strains On Military Families Turn Deadly [NY Times]