Read the case study
A Chilling Storyfirst
Who
Mark Lepine (25 y/o)
the 27 women who were shot
What
27 women where shot in Where during When, Mark then shot himself
Where
Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique
When
Just after 5pm on Wednesday, December 13, 1989
Why
How
Via a semiautomatic rifle
Questions
- What his Mark’s past with women that caused him to feel they “Ruined his life” (s)
- What was the unsuitable personality trait that got him rejected from the armed forces (p)
- Why has mark never been in a long term educational program? Is it a lack of commitment? (p)
- What are the common factors between Men aged 23-27 that have committed similar murderous crimes? (s/a)
- Does he have access to substances? And does did he have a substance abuse issues. (p)
Sociological assumption
In your opinion, do you think one discipline and method would be more effective than another? If so, which ones and explain why.
I believe that the least effective would have been Anthropology then, Sociology & the most effective would have been Psychology by far.
I don’t believe Anthropology would have had any (major) effect as it’s looking at the large scale and would not have been effective in this isolated case.
As for Sociology, there wasn’t a ton of big differences when you compare Mark Lepine to the average Joe from the Sociology perspective. He didn’t have anything super off about him until there was eventual outbreak.
Lastly, I believe that Psychology would have been at least partially effective as there was some (unknown) psychological reasoning that Lepine got rejected from the army which could have shed some light on his issues early on.
Do you think Marc Lepine could have been stopped? … Can crimes like Marc Lepine’s be prevented? Why or why not? 1-2 paragraphs
I do not believe Mark Lepine’s actions could have been stopped with the exception of some kind of dystopian global security system. With the exception of his rejection from the Military, there were no signs of disturbance nor harmful intent. While he never had any long-term relationships, that’s also not uncommon and necessarily a warning of future actions.
The only facts that we knew beforehand were that he had issues committing to things such as education or relationships. In modern-day Canada we heavily restrict access to guns have a lot of mental health resources easily accessible and while they have helped; bringing Canada’s rate of violent gun crimes down to only 0.57/100,000 compared to our neighbors the US’s 4.31/100,000, it still has not eliminated the problem.
In conclusion, Lepine’s actions, while horrific, were most likely unforeseeable. This underscores the difficulty in predicting and preventing such rare acts, emphasizing the need for continued efforts to understand and address the complex issue of violence and predicting the human mind.