The New York Times reports:

A professed hatred of women is frequent among suspects in the long history of mass shootings in America.

There was the massacre in 1991, when a man walked into Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Tex., and fatally shot 22 people in what at the time was the worst mass shooting in modern United States history. The gunman had recently written a letter to his neighbors calling women in the area “vipers,” and eyewitnesses said he had passed over men in the cafeteria to shoot women at point blank range.

“Even some of the incidents that people don’t know about or aren’t really familiar with now or don’t come to mind, there definitely is a thread of this anger, and misogyny,” said James M. Silver, a professor of criminal justice at Worcester State University who has worked with the F.B.I. to study the motivations of mass gunmen.

In recent years, a number of these men have identified as so-called incels, short for involuntary celibates, an online subculture of men who express rage at women for denying them sex, and who frequently fantasize about violence and celebrate mass shooters in their online discussion groups.

Special reverence is reserved on these websites for Elliot O. Rodger, who killed six people in 2014 in Isla Vista, Calif., a day after posting a video titled “Elliot Rodger’s Retribution.” In it, he describes himself as being tortured by sexual deprivation and promises to punish women for rejecting him. Men on these sites often refer to him by his initials and joke about “going ER” — or a murderous rampage against “normies,” or non-incels.

Several mass killers have cited Mr. Rodger as an inspiration.

Alek Minassian, who drove a van onto a sidewalk in Toronto in 2018, killing 10 people, had posted a message on Facebook minutes before the attack praising Mr. Rodger. “The Incel rebellion has already begun!” he wrote. “All hail Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!”

And Scott P. Beierle, who last year shot two women to death in a yoga studio in Tallahassee, had also expressed sympathy with Mr. Rodger in online videos in which he railed against women and minorities and told stories of romantic rejection. Mr. Beierle had twice been charged with battery after women accused him of groping them.

Federal law enforcement officials said the F.B.I. was looking at whether the gunman in Dayton had connections with incel groups, and considered incels a threat.

Experts say the same patterns that lead to the radicalization of white supremacists and other terrorists can apply to misogynists who turn to mass violence: a lonely, troubled individual who finds a community of like-minded individuals online, and an outlet for their anger. [Continue reading…]