Why have mass public shootings in the U.S. become more frequent and lethal over the last two decades? This question cannot be answered by looking exclusively at the biographies, personalities, or mental health problems of individual shooters.
Why have mass public shootings in the U.S. become more frequent and lethal over the last two decades? This question cannot be answered by looking exclusively at the biographies, personalities, or mental health problems of individual shooters. Instead, to paraphrase C. Wright Mills, human behavior is never self-contained and must be understood at the intersection between the personal and social realms. Employing a sociological perspective and drawing from various data sources and case studies, this book offers a theoretical analysis of mass public shootings and the structural factors that drive these incidents. Our analysis highlights how neoliberalism—not simply as a set of pro-market policies but as an ideology and governing rationality—is linked to the mass shooting phenomenon in the United States.
Since the late 20th century, neoliberalism has not only heightened economic precarity and feelings of despair, but also encouraged ruthlessness, ideological extremism, and the prioritization of personal aims over others’ well-being. These tendencies have been amplified by digital technologies that encourage social isolation and egoistical forms of agency, all of which weaken social bonds, erode empathy, and drive some individuals to kill as an effort to seek respect and recognition—what the classical Greeks called “thymos”—in a society that strips them of their dignity and makes them feel devalued and irrelevant.
This book will be an appropriate and useful supplementary text for various types of courses within sociology, criminology, and other social sciences that look at the social dimension of violence. In addition, the book should be of interest to a wider, non-academic audience that seeks a data-driven, sociological analysis of this phenomenon that is written in clear, accessible language.
List of Figures
List of Tables
Introduction
1. The Modern Mass Public Shooting Phenomenon
2. Neoliberalism, Hyper-Neoliberalism, and the Thymotic Need for Recognition
3. Workplace Mass Public Shootings, Identity, and Thymotic Despair
4. Youth and School Mass Public Shootings in Neoliberal America
5. Lone-Actor Terrorism and Ideologically Motivated Active/Mass Public
Shooters
6. Conclusion
Index
Luigi Esposito is a professor and co-chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Barry University in Miami Shores, FL. He has co-edited three books and published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on issues related to neoliberalism, race and ethnic relations, medicalization, social theory, gun politics, globalization, and ethics.
Fernando M. Perez is a professor and co-chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Barry University in Miami Shores, FL. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and presented widely at professional conferences on topics including consumerism/privatization, drug policy, mass violence, and medicalization.
