No name, no fame

Public recognition is a driver for many mass shooters.

Hundreds of mass shooting events every year take thousands of innocent lives. What drives someone to publicly kill another human being? To blithely wipe out human life?

Bizarrely the general motive is a quest for significance, for a feeling that their life matters. Mayhem and destruction at the end of the barrel of an automatic weapon that can tear flesh and bones apart at five hundred rounds a minute. Blood and death and agonising misery.

Headlines and lead stories from coast to coast. Instant national and international recognition and significance. Instant thoughts and prayers. Everyone everywhere knows who you are. Everyone knows your name.

Maybe it’s time to change that. Maybe it’s time to change the law to make it illegal to name, identify, photograph or film any mass shooter.

They can no longer be mentioned by name. Their image cannot be taken or reproduced in any way whatsoever. Their private lives and personalities are expunged.

In court they’re referred to as a prefix and a number to contextualise their crimes. So rather than Lyndell Mays, 23, from Missouri, and Dominic Miller, also 23, from Missouri, they’re only ever referred to as Shooter #2828642 and Shooter #2828643.