*Her point. The problem with calling it a mass suicide - besides the fact that hundreds of people slaughtered were children (who had no idea what was happening

*Her point. The problem with calling it a mass suicide - besides the fact that hundreds of people slaughtered were children (who had no idea what was happening), the elderly (threatened into submission) and people forcibly held down and injected with poison - is that it leaves room to think that the majority of these 900 people CHOSE to die, and Speier's account shows that they overwhelmingly absolutely did not, regardless of their previous allegiance to the church. Subsequently, we can joke about people's stupidity instead of having a conversation about how to recognize demagogues like Jones and prevent their rise to power. I believe Speier's implication is that calling it mass suicide assigns culpability to the victims and away from a murderer.