Spoiling kids doesn't necessarily turn them into narcissists, but it can be a contributing factor and an excessive sense of entitlement and bouts of anger are common in both. NPD is at one end of the anti-social personality disorder scale and sociopaths/psychopaths at the other. Sociopaths and psychopaths differ in that psychopaths are thought to have more of a neurological basis to their disorder and generally do not feel remorse or empathy, this would explain why they don't have to be from bad environments to act in that way. From reading the book "The Serial Killers" by Colin Wilson and Donald Seaman (good insight into the psychological aspects), it seems that there's also a high proportion of head injuries that required hospitalisation in the youth of many of these killers which also gives weight to the idea that this might stem from brain dysfunction.
Although there's a large grey area with psychopathy, sociopaths are capable of remorse and are generally the way they are due to environmental factors.
I think with guns, you can't seperate the fact that ease of killing does put it in the grasp of many that wouldn't be able to otherwise.
I'm still unconvinced that there's more serial killers now than there were twenty years ago, I would have thought that they'd be caught far more quickly nowadays. Maybe the ferocity of the crimes is to ensure more coverage - murders need to be quite savage to be front page news and make a name for the killer
From what I understand, sociopath is just the new name for psychopath. I've never heard anyone distinguish between the two terms, do you know of anything I could read to learn about the difference?
I don't think there are more killers now than 30 years ago, I think there are more sexual sadist sociopathic serial killers since the Victorian era in the U.S. I also think the range of personalities observed among serial killers and other sociopaths has broadened over time. NPD is different from narcissism in general, which is just a single trait among many possible traits.
There have been tons of theories about traumatic brain injuries and their potential to turn people violent, but the problem with this theory is that many, many people get brain injured and very few of them kill anyone. Why don't brain injuries in, say, Swedish people lead to serial killings as well? What's apparent is that there are certain traits common to serial killers, and they are:
1) sexual sadism
2) necrophilia
3) narcissism
4) lack of empathy
5) feelings of disempowerment (e.g. I shouldn't have to work this shit job, women shouldn't be allowed in professional fields, etc)
Many psychiatrists and other scholars think that legends of monsters like werewolves, vampires, etc. originated when people found victims of brutal murders in times before people understood that people could be responsible for these sorts of crimes. Vampires in particular were a supernatural explanation for the work of serial killers--of course, no normal person wants to think a human would do something so vile.