Did the CEO Killer Leave a Blueprint for Future Would-Be School Shooters?
By Michael Kelman Portney
Let’s face it: America may have just given a certain troubled subset of would-be killers a brand-new blueprint for their deranged quest for eternal fame. With the recent assassination of a United Healthcare CEO—and let’s not ignore the ironic pun that we’re suddenly more "United" than ever—there’s a creeping concern that the next generation of psychopaths will trade in the blood-spattered school hallways for the power-scented boardrooms of corporate America.
Why target random classmates and teachers—faces that drift quietly through one’s daily routine—when you can go straight for the top of the food chain, someone who is widely reviled (or at least resented) for their role in perceived injustice? After all, if our morbidly unified national response to this executive’s demise is anything to go by, it seems like the assassin snagged not just headlines, but a macabre kind of anti-hero status. That’s right: the cultural chatter surrounding this event might actually be teaching would-be killers that if you pick a target everyone loves to hate, your name gets etched into the annals of infamy with a little more flair—perhaps even a grudging nod of, “Well, that’s one way to send a message.”
Normally, we would dismiss these killers as unhinged loners, individuals just looking to sow chaos. But the way some are reacting to this CEO’s death—quietly satisfied, maybe even taking a break from their usual red-blue political slap fights to agree on something—threatens to amplify the perverse allure of attacking high-profile, unpopular figures. If historically, shooters targeted schools for the twisted thrill of maximum media coverage and shocked, grieving communities, now they might be looking at how easily the CEO assassination captured and held America’s attention. And let’s be honest, it’s not like they aren’t noticing the difference in tone. The wails of disbelief after a school shooting are universal and heart-wrenching. The reaction this time around? More complicated. More… dare we say, "understanding"? Even "fascinated"?
In this bizarre new paradigm, we have to worry that future mass murderers will see the recent events as a how-to guide. They might think: “If I want fame and a smidgen of twisted respect, maybe I should aim at someone powerful, someone people already kind of hate. Maybe my name will go down in history as the vigilante who took down a corporate titan.” It’s not just about the killing itself; it’s about the narrative that follows. The difference between revulsion and a kind of horrified awe is subtle but significant. When the world collectively shudders but also half-whispers, “Well, he picked a villain, didn’t he?” it sets a dangerous precedent.
The irony is that this sentiment arises from a warped sense of justice. People who cheer on—or even slightly applaud—the outcome of this violent act don’t realize they’re stoking a new fire. They’re inadvertently encouraging the next monster who wants to be remembered not as another faceless slaughterer in a grim parade of tragedy, but as the person who "made a statement" by taking out a figure they (and much of the public) deemed worthy of wrath.
Now is the time to ask ourselves: How do we talk about this event without glorifying it? How do we ensure that society’s collective response—our jokes, our awkward chuckles, our shrugs of “Yeah, that CEO had it coming”—doesn’t embolden the would-be killers lurking in the shadows? We’re treading on dangerous territory, where the moral outrage and disgust we normally feel after mass violence could be replaced by uneasy smirks and a misguided sense of poetic justice.
If we’re not careful, what just transpired may serve as a turning point in how we incentivize violence. The line between protest, retribution, and terrorism is getting blurrier by the day. America, unified in shock, should be careful how it interprets and discusses this tragedy. Because lurking in the minds of future killers might be the realization that going after corporate or political giants could be the shortcut to a legacy that school hallways could never provide.
And let’s face it, for all our newfound "unity," turning CEO assassinations into the next big cultural flashpoint is probably not the kind of national bonding experience we should be aiming for.
