On Sunday, criminal justice professor Adam Lankford stood in front of a crowd of sociologists to explain how American culture contributes to the all-too-frequent American mass shootings. It’s not just that we have a lot of guns, he said — though he does believe that the high rates of firearm ownership are partially to blame. It’s the social strains of American life — the false promise of the American dream, which guarantees a level of success that can’t always be achieved through hard work and sheer willpower; the devotion to individualism and the desire for fame or notoriety.
Millions of Americans feel these strains and never commit a crime. But for a small handful, they breed the kind of resentment and fury that can explode into violence.
When an embittered former Roanoke reporter opened fire on his onetime colleagues three days later, interrupting their live broadcast to ensure that his attack made it on TV, it was as though he was trying to prove Lankford’s point.
[For more of this story, written by Sarah Kaplan, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/...m-of-mass-shootings/]
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