Mass Shootings Aren't Random

A little over a week ago, my husband and I drove down to Washington, DC so we could see Ani DiFranco play in a local club. There was a long line wrapped around the block before the venue opened and behind us in the line was a young woman, about 19 years old, who was attending the concert with her dad.

That morning we’d all woken up to the news of the mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs . . . everyone was excited to see a badass like Ani perform, but the anxiety of being in a public space (for many reasons, not least of which was fear of gun violence) was palpable.

The young woman couldn’t keep that anxiety behind the gate of her teeth, and she started talking about the “gun issue” with her dad, pausing after a few sentences, she said, “I guess we’re in public and about to go into a crowded club, so I shouldn’t talk about this anymore.”

That’s when I turned around and said, “No, speak up. We need to talk about it more. You’re doing a good job.” I gave her a fist bump and she nervously said thanks and complimented my bell bottoms. I looked her in the eyes and said, “Seriously. This is how we’re going to fix it.” She and her dad smiled. I saw them later, on the floor in front of the stage, dancing. Happy. Safe.

We were allowed to hear great music that night. We made it out alive. 

Correct Framing

There’s so much I want to say in this note today and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to put it together in a coherent way, even after thinking about it for months, especially since the most recent string of mass shootings.

One of my stated intentions with Notes from a Neighbor is to be a voice that will help shift our conversations further upstream so we can be truly holistic thinkers about the root causes of our collective illness. An egregious and obvious illness harming our communities is gun violence, but we keep framing mass shootings incorrectly as “random acts.” They aren’t random.

They are the inevitable result of stochastic terrorism and greed-driven policy choices, led by people with political motivations who don’t suffer any consequences because they act by proxy through militant groups and easily influenced individuals.

Correct framing is community care because it helps us react appropriately.

Who are these stochastic terrorists?

Stochastic terrorism is “the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted.”

It’s not hard to identify the stochastic terrorists among us:

• Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) regularly tweets or publicly makes statements that demonize the LGBTQ+ community, often mixing in messages about guns and/or religion.

• Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) does the same, making sure to slander the LGBTQ+ community as pedophiles and “groomers.”

• Tucker Carlson, host of a well-known FOX News program, is also responsible for this language, including inviting guests who claim the LGBTQ+ community has an “evil agenda.”

That’s just a small sampling of influential voices inciting against one marginalized group.

Here’s the thing though, mass shooters often pick what is referred to as “soft targets.” Soft targets are people/places that are unprotected and generally vulnerable, especially to terrorism. Marginalized groups, by the very nature of being marginalized, are typically soft targets. Think BIPOC, Jews, LGBTQ+, women, and children, then consider the voices inciting against those groups and the resulting targets shooters often choose.

Women and Children As Targets

You might think it’s odd that I put women on the list of threatened, marginalized groups, but a common trait of shooters is hatred of women. Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, points out that the higher the casualty count in a shooting the greater the likelihood that the shooter had a history of violence toward women. And the John Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions found that between 2014 to 2019, more than two-thirds of mass shootings were linked to domestic violence.

Who stokes that hatred and helps normalize the violence against women? Consider these words from far-right extremist leaders on women:

• Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist, and radio talk show host, who co-founded Turning Point USA, a non-profit that “trains and organizes” conservative youth on college campuses all over the country. On June 24, 2022 Kirk tweeted, “Frankly, it’s foolish to call conservatives racist – who we actually can’t stand are angry, liberal, white women.”

• Nick Fuentes, is a white supremacist leader, and livestreamer who is trying to create a white nationalist alternative to the Republican party. Earlier this year, on his America First show, Fuentes said that women have created a “totally fucked up society,” are responsible for molesting kids in primary schools, and that, “We need to go back to burning women alive more.”

• Dennis Prager, is a conservative radio talk show host, and writer, who co-founded PragerU, which is not an academic institution but instead creates five-minute videos on topics according to a conservative viewpoint. On August 30, 2022 Prager published an essay titled, “Women Are Disproportionately Hurting Our Country,” in which he goes on to cite examples of how women, especially in the teaching, healthcare, and clergy professions, due to their inability to control their emotions, are harming society, specifically children.

What about children on that list though, is anybody really saying anything targeting them, and are they actually a marginalized group? Every time an extremist says that schools, or more specifically teachers, are hurting children, they plant the idea that schools should be targeted in the mind of a would-be shooter.

And, yes, children are a very marginalized group in the U.S. They have no voice and many of our systems and laws do nothing to protect them. I mean, as of November 17, 2022, there have been 304 fatal school shootings since Columbine. Not such a well-represented and protected group is it?

The Other Targets

I’m not even outlining here examples of stochastic terrorism directed at the BIPOC or Jewish communities. Any of us, having paid even slight attention since 2016, could recite numerous examples, many of them spoken by the most dangerous stochastic terrorist of our time.

(BTW, while not the same as a mass shooting, if a police officer works in a department that overtly and covertly makes racist statements about Black people as a threat and that officer operates in a country that largely grants qualified immunity, isn’t it inevitable that extrajudicial executions will occur? Another facet of this gun violence problem.)

Normally, I would link to names and examples of what I’m writing about, but I don’t want to amplify the people and platforms that are specifically advocating harm that I cited above. The Southern Poverty Law Center and Right Wing Watch carefully monitor extremists, and you can find accurate information on those websites about these people and organizations.

Policy Choices That Fuel Mass Shootings

So, I’ve shared just a small sample of the stochastic terrorism that leads to mass shootings. What about the greed-driven policy that also contributes?

Again, there are numerous examples of policy choices (like allowing the expiration of the assault weapons ban or how difficult it has been to address the “boyfriend loophole” or the blocking of federal funding for the study of gun violence) that make mass shootings likely, but the glaring example is how our lawmakers profit from blocking common-sense gun laws.

OpenSecrets, is a nonpartisan, independent, nonprofit, research group that tracks money in U.S. politics and its effect on public policy. They publish a spreadsheet, showing how much Senators and Representatives have been paid by the NRA. Both parties are guilty of taking NRA blood money but note that the first 72 entries alone are Republicans, who have been given a total of nearly $70 million.

Gun Culture

There’s another reason mass shootings aren’t random. There is a gun culture in the U.S. that trains and celebrates the use of weapons, even by children, with the explicit intention that other humans might someday become the target, because of a need to “defend our freedom.” (Note that I am not speaking about passing on the practice of respectful hunting here, for which assault weapons are not required.)

That culture often intertwines a Christian message into the use of guns, like the firearms manufacturer, Daniel Defense, posting this ad with a Bible verse about training children. Think how arrogant U.S. culture is to have wondered how Sudanese children became child soldiers, while we have an active gun culture celebrating Kyle Rittenhouse for murdering people.

As W.E.B. Du Bois said, “The cause of war is preparation for war.” Mass shootings aren’t random. They are inevitable.

Can We Admit It’s Happening Here?

Recently, my husband and I binged all three seasons of “Derry Girls,” a show about teenage friends growing up in Derry, Northern Ireland just before the Good Friday Agreement brought an end to a 30-year armed conflict referred to as, “The Troubles.”

We loved it because it was funny and provided lots of ‘90s teen nostalgia for us, but it also made us confront something . . . it feels like the U.S. is a bit like Northern Ireland before the 1998 agreement.

I’ve read a lot over the past week, some pieces saying that is an apt comparison, others saying it is not (and in making the comparison, I don’t intend any disrespect whatsoever to the Irish people who endured that conflict). From my perspective, it seems pretty clear though:

• There is a ultra-conservative faction in the U.S. who aren’t okay with the social order changing and since citizens via the democratic process aren’t helping them maintain that old order, they are choosing corrosive discourse and dangerous rhetoric to influence organized militant groups, like the Proud Boys, and lots of individual actors to carry out the violence.

• This faction is specifically and aggressively inciting against targeted groups, but we’re all acceptable collateral damage compared to their agenda. The problem of gun-driven mass murder is an “us” problem. None of us are safe from it and there are no public spaces where we aren’t all at risk.

It might not be as clear as the sides in the Northern Ireland conflict were, but I also think we are struggling to admit to ourselves that a similar conflict is happening here.

How Do We Respond?

I know this isn’t a comfortable or cheery topic, but gun violence was the first issue that made me recognize my work as a health coach couldn’t begin and end with smoothie recipes and sleep tips. How could I encourage my clients to go to the grocery store and buy healthy food, if they could be shot to death in the produce section? This is the issue that began my move into centering community care.

Joining Everytown for Gun Safety and working to remove from positions of power or influence those who are guilty beyond the shooters are some basic ways we can respond more effectively. But also, don’t forget how crucial it is to stand firm and do what you can to protect marginalized groups.

Community care, especially when it comes to gun violence, IS self-care. As Fannie Lou Hammer said, “We’re not free until everybody is free.”

I hope that framing mass shootings as inevitable, rather than random, helps you see the issue more holistically and helps us respond with greater community care by addressing the actual root causes.

Maybe we’d be allowed to enjoy our public lives without fear again? Maybe more of us will make it out alive.

I recognize that most of us are very traumatized by mass shootings. If you feel able, I’d like to know your thoughts on this issue.