On the morning of October 1, shots rang out at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. Clad in body armor and armed with five pistols and a rifle, the 26-year-old gunman killed nine people before he was killed himself. Described by law enforcement officials as “an angry young man who was very filled with hate,” the shooter was a reclusive white man who, according to People magazine, penned affirmations of other mass shooters in his manifesto.

The shooting was the 142nd to occur at schools in the United States since the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre in December of 2012. While gun control has been at the center of the discussion about how to stop the growing number of school shootings, journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell says the problem goes even deeper.

During today’s Reddit Ask Me Anything session, Gladwell delved into how online culture might be motivating people—predominantly young white men—to commit mass murders.

“The media’s not the issue anymore. The crucial shift that happened after Columbine is that the movement turned inward: The shooters went from being influenced by the broader culture to creating their own, internal shared world.”

In his latest article, “Thresholds of Violence,” he cites research from Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter, and parallels shooter psychology with rioters who are “otherwise quite normal people who would not usually be disposed to violence.”

Gladwell describes the social process during a riot, where a person’s threshold for committing a crime is tested by what others around them are doing or supporting:

“In the elegant theoretical model Granovetter proposed, riots were started by people with a threshold of zero—instigators willing to throw a rock through a window at the slightest provocation. Then comes the person who will throw a rock if someone else goes first. He has a threshold of one. Next in is the person with the threshold of two. His qualms are overcome when he sees the instigator and the instigator’s accomplice.”

This type of violent group think has found its way into online communities, which Gladwell says is a hothouse for school shooter development.

He emphasized that gun control should still be a priority for reducing violent crimes in general, but that school shooters should be handled differently.

“They are a subgenre of homicide that is about a specific fantasy that has taken hold of some teenaged boys,” Gladwell says. “We could crack down on guns and still have a Columbine.”

Earlier this month, Mother Jones published data on the Columbine cult following that has inspired 74 new cases, which collectively caused 89 deaths, 126 wounded, and 9 shooter suicides. The data was released alongside a deep dive into how law enforcement and psychologists have begun working together to stop the next school shooting before it happens.

The article also highlights the role Internet communities and social media have had in the rise of mass shootings—but also how it can be used to stop them. According to FBI special agent Andre Simons, potential killers sometimes give themselves away online before they commit the crime.

Just as digital media has created platforms for dangerous people seeking a blaze of notoriety, it has also become a valuable tool for identifying them. “We’re now seeing that shooters are announcing more frequently via social media just prior to attacking … When people express violent ideation, what we’re looking for is: Who are they talking to? Who’s listening?” These days, he adds, “it’s possible they’re living more vividly online than in the physical world.”

While Gladwell didn’t delve far into these potential solutions, he encourages continuing the conversation about how culture drives violence and recommends society adopt better mechanisms for allowing young men to exercise their fascination with weapons in a more productive and nonviolent way:

“Lots of boys are fascinated with guns,” he says. “For many years we had outlets for those sorts of fascinations (hunting, the military, chemistry sets etc). For whatever reason, some of those outlets have lost their cultural power with some kids. We need to figure out ways to give those outlets more life.”

Click here to read Gladwell’s AMA in its entirety.