| Apparently sociopathy can’t be diagnosed before age eighteen. |
[ChicagoTribune] Six days before he allegedly opened fire on an elementary school playground, the eighth-grader returned to his Instagram group chat to fixate, yet again, on his most intense interests: guns and bombs and the mass murder of children.
"My plan," wrote Jesse Osborne, who had turned 14 three weeks earlier, "is shooting my dad getting his keys getting in his truck, driving to the elementary school 4 mins away, once there gear up, shoot out the bottom school class room windows, enter the building, shoot the first class which will be the 2d grade, grab teachers keys so I don't have to hasle to get through any doors."
He had been researching other school shooters for months and, determined to outdo them, learned exactly how many people they'd murdered: 13 at Columbine High; 26 at Sandy Hook Elementary; 32 at Virginia Tech.
"I think ill probably most likely kill around 50 or 60," Jesse declared. "If I get lucky maybe 150."
On Valentine's Day, at the same time police say another angry teen, Nikolas Cruz, slaughtered 17 people at a Parkland, Florida, high school with a semiautomatic AR-15, Jesse was sitting in a South Carolina courtroom, waiting to find out if he would be tried as an adult for a 2016 rampage that left his father and a 6-year-old dead.
The two teens have much in common. Both, investigators say, tortured animals, obsessed over guns and bragged of their deadly intentions on social media. And in the hours after Cruz's alleged killing spree, as the nation began, once again, to ask why, a group of detectives, prosecutors and psychiatrists were providing answers about Jesse, now 15. He'd detailed his motives in dozens of online messages, in his 46-page confession and in lengthy interviews with doctors who evaluated him, offering extraordinary insight into the mind of an American school shooter.
Study: There Is Actually Not A School Shooting ‘Epidemic'
[DailyCaller] Researchers at Northeastern University claim there is not a school shooting “epidemic” and schools are actually safer than in the 1990s, according to a study published Feb. 26.
Following the Parkland massacre where 17 students and faculty were murdered and another 16 injured, policymakers and politicians are grappling with ways to combat school shootings. The solution of reforming gun policies might be less effective in combating school shooting sprees.
“There is not an epidemic of school shootings,” said James Alan Fox, Lipman Family Professor of Criminology, Law, and Public Policy at Northeastern University, who led the research project with doctoral student Emma Fridel, Northeastern reported.
Their research emphasizes that school shootings are actually infrequent — only approximately one out of 20 to 30 mass shootings per year take place at a school. The study also suggests that school shootings are lessening, approximately four times the amount of people were killed during shooting sprees in the 1990s compared to now. Banning bump stocks and raising the age to purchase an assault rifle might do little to prevent school shootings. In the past 35 years, there are only five cases where someone aged 18 to 20 used an assault rifle to carry out a mass shooting, Fox said.
“The thing to remember is that these are extremely rare events, and no matter what you can come up with to prevent it, the shooter will have a workaround,” Fox said. The researcher alleges that increasing mental health programs and guidance counselors at schools are a more effective way to combat school shootings. 
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