records of their siblingsgetting into trouble. Dylans father was a geologist and Erics was a decoratedAir Force pilot. At school, Eric and Dylan were not particularly handsome,athletic or academically brilliant in a way that made them stand out from theirpeers. Other students called them losers, a typically American insult, which undoubtedlyleft them feeling resentful. One day, armed with a pistol, a carbine, twoshotguns and homemade bombs, they killed thirteen people at the school theyattended and then committed suicide.Among the numerous stories published in Brazilian media about thisevent, one in particular caught my attention, entitled How was it possible?[3] Itbegins with these words:Something very wrong, very malignant, lurks in the bowels of Americansociety. When it comes to the surface, everyone asks how is it possible forhorrors of this kind to take place in a democratic, rich and powerful countrylike the United States.This country,according to the article, astonishes the world with itsperiodic outbursts of insanity... Time and again, insane people fire atcrowds... Nothing similar in terms of gratuitous outbursts of deadly violence isfound in other countries.Note that the perpetrators of this type of murder do not intend tobenefit from any material advantage or in any ideological way and, moreover, donot even attempt to escape unscathed after committing the crime. Quite the opposite:they act in broad daylight and, once the deed is accomplished, their usualbehavior is to hand themselves in to the authorities or, as in the case of Ericand Dylan, to commit suicide. Furthermore, such massacres are tooindiscriminate to be understood as strictly personal vendettas. Often themurderer simply enters a store or climbs a tower and randomly shoots victimswho, more often than not, are unknown to him. Even in a case like that of Ericand Dylan, where the slaughter was committed against members of a school wherethey felt despised, the shooting was too arbitrary to be considered an actagainst specific people.Finally, we can add that such crimes are habitually committed by members of agroup that, from a material point of view, have a lot to lose: 71% ofoccurrences of this kind are carried out by middle class white people, while inthe case of other kind of crimes, just 36% of the perpetrators belong to thisgroup. In other words, from theperspective of any palpable gain, mass shootings seem completely senseless, andgenerate widespread perplexity. Could, however, the insane behavior of Eric and Dylan begin to makesense if, instead viewing it as a crime, we view it as a statement?.The Urge to SpeakLet me repeat: Eric and Dylan were not sufficiently handsome, athleticor academically brilliant to stand out from their peers, and there is no doubtthat they resented this. This is what President Clinton had to say about theepisode.There are a lot of other kids out there whoare building up resentment and are outside our reach.[4]One journalist responded to this comment by saying: In other words, it will happenagain! And again, and again, and again... A short while afterward, a similarmassacre took place. As one newsheadline put it: It has happened again...But lets hold on a second! Feelingresentment, is very different from, in Bill Clintons words, building