The Violence Project

by Jillian Peterson

  Deaths of despair have risen in nearly every age group over the last decade, but the increase has been especially pronounced for Millennials, anyone born between 1981 and 1996. Millennials are the largest living adult generation and over 40 percent of all mass shooters since 1998 fall within this cohort. Millennials have experienced acute financial stressors stemming from student loan debt, health care, and high housing costs. The oldest ones lived through the 9/11 terrorist attacks and entered the labor market in the recession that hit soon after. They spent their early years struggling to find work during a jobless recovery, only to be hit by the Great Recession in 2008 and another jobless recovery that depressed their lifetime earnings potential. Then, in 2020, just as they were entering their prime working years, Millennials got hit again, by yet another recession, this one triggered by the global pandemic.

  Job loss hits especially hard in the United States, which lacks the social programs and support systems more common in other wealthy countries for when working families run into difficult times. Coronavirus laid bare that America remains the only large rich country without universal health care or a robust social safety net. Tying health insurance to employment means that when Americans lose their jobs, they lose their means to live in more ways than one. (During the recession of 2008 and 2009, about 3.9 million American adults lost their health insurance.)19 The connection between work and happiness is also more intense in the United States, owing to the country’s Puritan roots and Protestant work ethic.20

  Workplace massacres are the most common form of mass shootings, accounting for about 28 percent of the total. They typically are perpetrated by angry employees who were recently fired or reprimanded—like the 2020 Molson Coors shooter, a fifty-one-year-old employee who was fired earlier in the day and then returned to the campus with a gun and killed himself after shooting his fellow employees. The Molson Coors shooter was Black, which surprised many commentators who assumed mass shooters were exclusively white. Part of this stems from biased media reporting, which, studies show, tends to be more sympathetic toward white shooters and inclined to describe them as mentally ill or the victims of society and circumstance.21

  Only 52 percent of mass shooters are white (compared to 60 percent of the U.S. population), whereas 20 percent are Black (versus 13 percent of the U.S. population), and 8 percent are Latinx (versus 18 percent of the U.S. population). This means Black individuals are overrepresented among mass shooters by about the same proportion that white people were under-represented, while Latinx are the most underrepresented group. Where we see the most Black mass shooters is in the workplace. Generations removed from slavery, Jim Crow, and “separate but equal,” Black Americans still face hiring discrimination, skills-based underemployment, racial harassment and microaggressions for their being Black in a white workplace, fewer job opportunities, lower pay, poorer benefits, and greater job instability.22 Years before his crime, the Molson Coors shooter was targeted with racial harassment at work: A colleague placed a noose on his locker.

  Workplaces are symbolic of unmet expectations and unrealized goals; by attacking them, shooters seek to exact revenge on the people and institutions they believe have kept them down. Just hours after submitting his resignation in May 2019, a disgruntled city employee fatally shot eleven coworkers and a contractor in a mass shooting at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center in the Commonwealth of Virginia. A public inquiry into events leading up to the shooting revealed that employees had talked about unfair treatment at work for years prior, to the extent that some believed violence in the workplace was almost inevitable. In our data, workplace shootings occurred most often among blue-collar employees without a college degree in small communities where a single company can anchor the local economy and in regions, like the industrial Midwest, that have experienced an acute loss of locally owned industry in recent decades.

  While the U.S. economy has been growing ever since the 1970s, growth has increasingly been focused at the top. In their analysis of deaths of despair, Case and Deaton argue that one of the fundamental forces working against less educated Americans is a half century of in-work poverty and low wages. Real wage decline leads to job decline, and this deterioration in job quality and detachment from the labor force bring misery and loss of earnings, along with a loss of pride. At the same time as jobs are being outsourced abroad, or to robots or gig workers, working-class people are experiencing declining marriage rates and declining attachments to organized religion, unions, or employers—which is leaving them more isolated and disconnected.

  Murder and violence tend to be higher in nations with the largest income inequality,23 but as Case and Deaton argue, this “American experience needs an American explanation.”24 It’s not just downward mobility that has some men feeling betrayed and contemplating death to themselves and others. In 1980, the population of the United States was 80 percent white. Today, that proportion is more like 60 percent and a handful of Southern states are majority minority. Within this context, sociologist Michael Kimmel argues that the modern push toward greater gender and racial equality in the United States (spearheaded by the Black Lives Matter and Me Too social movements), which has intentionally challenged traditional white male privilege and power, has left some men feeling bewildered and “tenaciously clinging to an anachronistic ideology of masculinity.”25 Raised to expect unparalleled social and economic privilege, white men are suffering today from what Kimmel calls “aggrieved entitlement,” a sense that those benefits that they believed were their due have been snatched away from them.

  According to a recent study by the United Nations, men perpetrate 96 percent of all homicides, and this extends to mass shootings—98 percent of mass shooters are male. The reasons men commit ten times more violence than women, both in America and around the world, are many and could fill an additional book. Researchers argue that it’s everything from evolution, biology, and hormones; to role models and gender socialization in homes, institutions, and society; to broader cultural norms and expectations. Suffice it to say, for mass shooters in our database, murder was rarely their first violent act—63 percent had a previous violent history. Over a quarter of our sample, 28 percent, had a history of domestic violence, with engaging in physical or sexual violence and coercive control against their wives and families as a precursor to committing a public mass shooting.

  Cultural norms, reinforced in movies, sports, and our everyday lives, shape expectations for how aggressively men should react to any sense of status frustration and aggrieved entitlement, and violence is one such adaptation. Michael Kimmel suggests that the relationship between violence and masculinity is particularly acute among the group he labels “angry white men,” because they can no longer “do” gender in traditional ways, such as economically providing for their households.26 When American men lose their jobs, they lose more than their income; they lose their sense of self. It cuts to the core. In America, we admire winners, and winning in America is counted in dollars and social standing. A series of humbling cultural and economic shifts has left some of the long-standing winners in American society feeling humiliated and victimized, unsure of exactly where they fit in, longing to win again.

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  Donald Trump won the White House in 2016 owing in large part to white male resentment. Angry white men were key to Trump carrying Rust Belt states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania and doing especially well in small cities and towns. Trump appealed to these men by vowing to “take back our country” and “make America great again.” These slogans tapped a deep sense that the country was being taken away by immigrants and liberal elites and being betrayed by the big cultural transformations America had experienced over the last few decades, such as the movements for Black Lives and LGBTQIA rights—changes that Hillary Clinton supporters were leaning into and celebrating. A 2016 survey found that a majority of white Americans (56 percent), including three in four white evangelical Protestants (74 percent), believed American society had changed for
the worse since the 1950s—it was no longer “winning.”27 “Make America great again” harked back to this mythical golden age of American greatness, a time of strong labor unions and plentiful manufacturing jobs that paid well, an era when white men had more political and cultural power.

  This “nostalgic longing for a particular version of America” was also observed by University of Arizona sociologist Jennifer Carlson in her study of American gun owners, the “citizen-protectors.”28 White people are more likely to own guns than are any other racial group—men much more so than women. They are motivated by a desire to protect their wives and children and to defend themselves against people and places they perceive as dangerous, especially those involving racial or ethnic minority men.29 And white men who have experienced economic setbacks or who experience a great deal of anxiety about their economic futures in general are the group of gun owners most attached to their guns.30 They use firearms to compensate for their losses, as a way of retrieving, restoring, and reclaiming manhood.

  And that is what mass shooters do when they take guns one step further and actually use them. A mass shooting is a matter of restoration: Although they are the ones who raise the gun and pull the trigger, mass shooters very often see themselves as the victims; they feel some great injustice has been done to them. Retired senior FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole describes mass shooters as “wound” or “injustice collectors,” people who stew in their anger. They never forget, never forgive, and never let go, nursing resentment over real or perceived injustices until, eventually, they strike back.31

  As a straight white man, Perpetrator A, the restaurant shooter, talked about feeling personally threatened by President Bill Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy while he was in the military. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” modified the military’s strict ban on gay soldiers, instituting a policy by which officers would not seek out gays for dismissal from the armed forces. Not long after his shooting, Perpetrator A told a documentary filmmaker, “I don’t think there’s anywhere in our Constitution that gives anyone the right to be accepted by anyone else. When the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, people automatically assumed that they had a right to many different things. Women, Blacks, now carrying into gays. They feel like they have a right to be accepted. Who—who do they need to accept them?” Perpetrator A’s sense of injustice was palpable. “They won’t even let guys in the barracks hang a flag in their room anymore. It’s almost as bad as our public schools—no prayer, no mention of God or Jesus Christ. Same as the military—you are gonna tell these guys that they can’t speak out against homosexuals?”

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  If people feel society is unfair, then they are less inclined to play by the rules. In a seminal study, criminologist Gary LaFree found that the murder rate since World War II tracked almost perfectly with the proportion of Americans who said they “trust the government in Washington to do what is right” most of the time and who believed that most public officials are honest.32 In 2016, Donald Trump courted disaffected and disempowered white voters by tearing up the political rule book and pledging to “drain the swamp.” After he took office, his penchant for conspiracy theories (like QAnon, which falsely claimed the president was facing down a secret cabal of Democratic pedophiles) and frequent attacks on the “fake news” media, the federal government, and rival politicians—even fired former administration officials—helped sow seeds of discontent and erode trust in our institutions, from the U.S. Postal Service to the election process.

  Writing in the Washington Post in 2017, historian Randolph Roth, author of the book American Homicide, warned that the growing trust deficit in America could lead to more lethal violence, including mass shootings. “When we lose faith in our government and political leaders, when we lack a sense of kinship with others, when we feel we just can’t get a fair shake, it affects the confidence with which we go about our lives,” he said. “Small disagreements, indignities and disappointments that we might otherwise brush off may enrage us—generating hostile, defensive and predatory emotions—and in some cases give way to violence.”33

  His words were eerily prophetic. The years 2017, 2018, and 2019 were the worst on record for mass shootings. And in 2021, a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which Donald Trump baselessly claimed was fraudulent and had been stolen from him.

  CHAPTER 3

  TRAUMA

  Perpetrator A, the mass shooter who killed four people in a restaurant, sent us a long letter about his childhood, written on sheets of yellow legal paper in his neat cursive handwriting. Almost as if he had rewritten it to look perfect. He apologized for how long it took him to write; he had been unable to afford postage stamps after he lost his prison job and was thrown in solitary for fighting. At the top of the first page, he had written and underlined the word Childhood. Each page was numbered and headed with his full name and inmate number.

  I grew up in [city], a small town of 2000 people in [state]. The house I grew up in was a small three bedroom, one bath, home about a mile north of town. My mother was raised on a mid-sized farm (cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks, horses, corn, oats, barley, wheat), one of four children. Her mom & dad were hardworking, catholic, alcoholic & abusive (physically) to each other + their children. She had one child prior to meeting my father (my sister). When she became pregnant with me, her dad wanted to kill my dad, so they took off + ended up in [Southern state] where I was born . . .

  Mom worked as a care provider at the State mental home in [city]. She worked hard, kept a clean house, cooked two-three meals a day + cared for us 3 kids as well as she knew how. She was quick to punish when we did wrong, cussed + smoked (rarely drank, maybe on her b-day). She had a low self-esteem + a basic education. She loved us + done what she could to provide for our needs + some of our wants. I love my mom, but it’s hard not to lay blame at her feet for staying with my dad, who was extremely abusive in several ways. I think her childhood shaped her idea of what was acceptable/normal in a marriage/family.

  My father was a bitter, angry, abusive man. He could be generous to his friends or other family members, but those of us in his house knew how controlling + violent he could be. He was also raised on a mid-sized farm in that same rural area. One of four children in a large farm-house shared by two brothers that married two sisters with a communal kitchen separating the two sides. His Aunt + Uncle had four children, also, so twelve people in one house working one farm. I’m not entirely sure what all took place in that house, but it wasn’t good. I know he was abused physically + I suspect sexually. He ran away at age 14 if that tells you anything. He was raised Lutheran + the discipline was swift + severe. So, he brought his own sense of “normal” behavior to our family.

  He verbally abused all of us on a daily basis, beat my mom + I, sexually abused my sister (his step-daughter) from age 11 until he killed himself when she was 20 + reported the abuse. I lived in fear of my dad.

  When I was about 10 years old I heard my dad in my sister’s room one morning. He had to go through my room to get to hers I woke up hearing her telling him to “stop, it hurts.” I had an idea of what was going on but wasn’t sure until when he walked into my room from her room. I quickly closed my eyes + pretended to be asleep. He stopped beside my bed + said, “I know you’re awake, you little son of a bitch. If you ever say a word I’ll kill all of you!” I didn’t move or make a sound & kept my eyes closed until he walked out. I believed him & never said a word. My dad terrified me.

  Dad would beat mom if she made him jealous or if she accused him of cheating on her (which he was, with several women) . . . I’d get beat when I really messed up + when I’d try to stop him from hitting mom. Many times he beat me as if I were a grown man (fists + boots). I was yelled and cussed at in addition to slaps, punches, kicks, and whippings. He forced me to work in the salvage yard he operated from the time I was old enough to pick up a wrench. I worked after school, weekends,
+ summers. He was more of an abusive over-seer than a father to me. I learned many things from him: carpentry, mechanics, plumbing, roofing, masoning, strong work ethics, what sex was by way of his porn collection, + how not to treat a wife + children. I still resent what he put our family through. He didn’t drink alcohol or do drugs + was tough as nails. Just mean!

  My sister is almost 2 years old than I am. We weren’t close or loving until we hit our late teens . . . Worked hard to help keep the house clean & would beat me if I didn’t help her. Her +mom fought constantly + mom would often beat her with a belt or wire hanger or with slaps + fists. She tried to tell my mom about the sexual abuse but was beated for telling “lies.”

  At school they told us we could report our parents if they hit us (I was still in elementary school at the time). I got home + told my mom + dad + they said that if I did I had better hope the cops got there before they killed me / I’d be dead before the cops got there.

  My little brother was five years younger than me + born with Cystic Fibrosis . . . He spent over half of his life in the hospital for months at a time. Mom would go visit him every night after work + fixing supper. It was a one hour drive to the hospital in [city]. She would take my sister + I alternate nights to visit him + dad would go once a week. [My brother] hated the hospital + would beg + cry for us to take him home every night. When he was home, my sister + I would have to get up at 6 am every week-day so we could perform his lung treatments before we went to school. He didn’t like to do those either (Mom + dad would both be gone to work by 5:30 am). He didn’t experience any physical or sexual abuse himself, but was exposed to what the rest of us went through. He + I shared a queen sized bed . . . He knew that he probably wouldn’t live past his teens. We all knew it. He made it to 19.