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

From an award-winning Mother Jones editor comes the inside story of the decades-long search for identifiable profiles and warning signs of mass shooters, by way of the specialized teams of psychologists, cops, and ordinary citizens working to predict and prevent violence in America--a fearless, in-depth, and ultimately redemptive account of an epidemic that desperately needs solving.

The frequency of mass shootings in the United States has tripled since 2011; in 2019, there were more mass shootings than days in the calendar year. Despite these staggering statistics, the aftermath of mass shootings is a familiar cacophony of "thoughts and prayers," sensationalist media coverage, and familiar debates around the second amendment. But in recent years, specialized teams of psychologists, counselors, and members of law enforcement have decided it's time to try something else: they'll focus on the behaviors and steps leading up to acts of mass violence--signs often glaring yet overlooked.

In Trigger Points, award-winning journalist and Mother Jones editor Mark Follman traces the evolution of behavioral threat analysis--from key psychologists' interviews with the criminally insane at Boston's Bridgewater State Hospital in the 1970s to the stalking behaviors discovered by FBI agents in the aftermath of John Lennon's assassination to the barrage of mass shootings that began, in earnest, with Columbine and culminated in research that revolutionized the field of analysis and deepened in more recent years following the events of Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, and Stoneman Douglas. Follman shows how the branch of forensic psychology originating in the FBI's research on serial killers and stalkers was eventually modified to predict the violence brewing within members of our communities, climaxing with the discussion of the Salem-Keizer school district in Oregon--the first to implement a comprehensive and immersive systemic program of threat assessment without punitive and penal measures. Through reliable and measured reporting, Follman ultimately points to how the United States can stand to adopt similar techniques, especially in light of a growing epidemic that ravages innocent citizens.

Weaving panoramic storytelling with fresh investigative insights, Trigger Points offers hope and a way forward at a time when the costs of failing to prevent gun violence have never been higher.