When Private Pain Becomes Public Violence: Why Outward Harm Is Worse...and What We Must Do About It

There’s a terrible, uncomfortable truth I want to put plainly: a life ended by suicide is a devastating personal tragedy. A life ended because someone decided to kill strangers is a social catastrophe. To say one is “worse” than the other is not a denial of pain; it’s a practical, legal, and moral distinction that matters for how we respond.

If you’re angry, good. This is an angry subject. But anger without precision is useless. So let’s be precise.

Two different crimes: one inward, one outward

When someone kills themselves, the immediate victim is that person. The ripples — grief, questions, trauma — are enormous and long-lasting. But the act does not directly take other people’s lives or violate others’ bodily autonomy.

When someone murders others, especially in a mass attack, the first and primary victims are other human beings whose lives were stolen. The act turns private despair into a public assault. It terrorizes communities, rewrites daily life (schools lock down, public gatherings shrink, fear becomes routine), and produces political fallout that corrodes trust. The moral culpability is different: murder is an intentional imposition of harm on innocents. Suicide is typically an expression of unbearable suffering, often accompanied by impaired judgment or illness.

This difference matters. It is not callous to note it — it is necessary.

If you or anyone reading this is in crisis, call or text 988 (U.S.) or your local emergency number immediately. If someone is an immediate threat to others, call 911.

The measurable harms of externalized violence

Consider the ways outward-directed violence multiplies harm:

• Multiple victims. One shooter can kill scores; one suicider, tragically, usually kills themselves and devastates a limited circle.
• Public terror. Mass murder changes how a society functions. Parents are scared to send kids to school; congregations hesitate to gather; events get canceled. That fear is a social cost beyond the immediate death toll.
• Copycat contagion. Spectacular violence inspires imitators. The media spectacle of killers, the manifestos, the notoriety: all provide a script for those seeking to be seen.
• Moral and legal culpability. Murder is a deliberate violation of others’ rights. We rightly punish and isolate those who take others’ lives. Suicide, by contrast, is treated as a health crisis demanding treatment, not punishment.
• Political weaponization. Mass killings are seized by actors across the spectrum to score points, justify draconian proposals, or deflect responsibility — all while the immediate victims are dead.

Those differences mean preventing mass violence saves more lives, preserves public safety, and protects the social fabric in ways suicide prevention — while equally vital — does not directly accomplish.

How private despair gets turned outward

The path from “I’m in pain” to “I will kill others” is not automatic. Most people who are suicidal never harm someone else. But a toxic cultural ecosystem makes outward violence thinkable for a dangerous few:

1. The fame economy. Notoriety is now a way to be certain you’ll be remembered. For someone desperate to matter, the calculus changes: die quietly and be mourned by dozens; kill publicly and be known by millions.

2. Easy access to lethal means. Guns convert momentary rage or despair into mass harm in seconds. Means matter; they’re the difference between an isolated tragedy and an atrocity.

3. Online radicalization. Forums and channels can normalize and glamourize violence, framing it as revenge, a solution, or a message.

4. Broken social ties. Isolation, shame, and the loss of community reduce the restraints that bind people to others; if you feel nobody counts, it’s easier to imagine harming strangers.

5. Contagion via reporting. Sensationalized coverage that names killers, recites manifestos, and circulates images functions as an indirect recruiting pamphlet.

That is the ecosystem we need to disrupt.

The hard, practical priorities (not moralizing platitudes)

You can recognize that outward violence is worse without wishing suicide upon anyone. The policy and cultural priorities that follow are practical: prevent other people from dying and keep communities safe — while also expanding compassionate help for those in distress.

1. Deny fame to killers. Media outlets and platforms must adopt consistent reporting norms: avoid naming the killer in headlines, refuse to publish manifestos in full, minimize sensational imagery, and center victims and survivors. Fame fuels imitation.

2. Limit access to lethal means. Policies that promote safe storage, permit temporary removal of firearms in crises (extreme-risk or “red flag” laws), and impose waiting periods save lives. Means restriction is the single most consistently effective suicide-prevention tool — and it’s the most direct way to prevent mass harm.

3. Expand crisis response and follow-up care. 24/7 mobile crisis teams, non-police emergency responses for mental-health crises, and guaranteed follow-up after any suicide attempt or violent threat turn acute moments into opportunities for treatment instead of escalation.

4. Interrupt radicalization. Platforms and community organizations must actively counter content that praises or instructs violence, and provide credible exit paths for those flirting with extremist scripts.

5. Restore civic ties and accountability. Schools, unions, workplaces, faith communities, neighborhood groups — all rebuild the social “seatbelts” that make people care about the consequences of harming others.

6. Enforce responsible journalism. Professional standards must emphasize preventing contagion. Journalists have an ethical duty: inform, but do not become the megaphone that broadcasts a killer’s manifesto.

7. Research and evaluation. Invest in studies that tell us what interventions work at scale: crisis teams, hospital follow-up, media practices, storage laws. Fund the data; use it.

The moral frame we should hold

Saying murder is worse is not a callous ranking. It is a recognition of rights: every person has a right not to be killed by someone else. It is a policy imperative: stopping outward violence prevents multiple deaths and preserves public life. It is a moral claim that says: when suffering exists, the first duty of a society is to stop people from harming others while also saving the stricken.

We can do both. We must.

If you believe, as I do, that outward violence is a categorical escalation — and therefore objectively worse in its social, legal, and moral consequences — then you should support steps that prevent that escalation: deny fame to killers, make lethal means harder to access in moments of crisis, fund crisis care that reaches the isolated and angry, and hold platforms and media accountable for how they amplify violence.

That is not mercy for killers; it is protection for the rest of us. And it is mercy for the person in crisis too — because the only thing worse than a life ended unnecessarily is a life that ends by taking others with it.

Cheers! Sláinte! Na zdravie!

Compiled with aid of ChatGPT