Angry old men

Local newspapers are chock full of stories about old men beating, shooting or attacking someone. In April in Sarasota, Fla., an 86-year-old man was arrested on charges of domestic battery, resisting arrest and battery on an officer. As in that case, violence among senior citizens can be related to mental impairment, which results in either poor impulse control or disorganized thinking.

In fact, the number of elderly being arrested and incarcerated has risen over the last two decades. The profile of an aging violent offender is, in its way, not that different than that of younger populations. Arrests for violent offenses among the elderly have been associated with males, low socioeconomic status, alcohol or drug abuse.

The killings at the Holocaust museum and the Wichita clinic at this point don't fit perfectly within that description. They are overtly political, and they remind us of the April Homeland Security report that warned of a resurgence of right-wing extremism. However, age may play a factor in that as well. In general, hard-edged conservatism is more popular among older cohorts, which means that if the report is accurate, we might expect to see more violence committed by middle-aged or elderly partisans.

So far, however, most of the violence committed by the elderly is self-inflicted. According to the Violence Policy Center, white males age 65 and older are more likely than any other age group to commit suicide with a firearm, far more so than either adolescents or young adults. In 1992, researcher John McIntosh predicted that the number and proportion of elderly suicide victims would climb -- from one in every five suicides in the 1980s to one in every three by 2030.

So should the angry old men replace the angry young ones in our social imaginations?

No, not quite.

We still have more to fear from angry young men. But, at the very least, it shouldn't surprise us so much that as the baby boomers and the country age, more and more violent tragedies are likely to come at the hands of older Americans.

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grodriguez@latimescolumnists.com