but your opinion on the reasoning of these cynical and unimaginably evil crimes, and why they've been happening more frequently as of late.

Something that didn't occur to me until recently is the lack of a national health service in the US. I'm assuming the same conditions apply for mental health as it does for, er, normal health? If someone was showing symptoms of odd behaviour at school in the UK, in a lot of cases they would be earmarked and referred to social services for counselling. Granted the quality of care might not be top notch and there will always be some individuals who slip through the net, but seeing as the perpetrators are clearly deranged, I can't help but think that this is a significant contributing factor. On the other hand people without money in the States have never had access to treatment, so as to why there seems to be a spike in these kinds of massacres recently, I'm none the wiser.

Let's get this clarified....mass shootings in the United States only?

yes.
and the 3 or 4 terrorist attacks are not counted.

There may not be one reason that the mass shootings occurred; perhaps there are a variety of contributing factors.

I did not know either of those names. However, I do agree with that completely and without question. If you are fixed on dying; why not get attention by doing so? I think if the media didn't cover it so much and treat them like they did something terrible. I do think however, they have cought on to that. The news (at least what I have watched) has only mentioned the shooters name when they had to and really just focused on the deaths of the people and actually skipped over him in the amount of people dead.

I don't agree with people saying that they treat them like celebrities but, they do give them a lot of attention and that is something they may not have had before. So when they get the chance to attain it, they do so.

I also think that this particular shooter had more wrong with him then just being suicidal. I think he had a load of mental illnesses and the mom should not have kept guns around when her child, at the very least, mentally unstable.