Making Sense of Mass Murder

Abstract

The execution-style murder of 14 family members by a rejected and controlling middle-aged man in rural Arkansas, the vengeful slayings of six coworkers by a disgruntled postal worker in a Royal Oak, Michigan, post office, and the indiscriminate slaughter of 23 customers at a Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, by a gunman apparently gone berserk are dramatic examples of the large and growing number of mass killings that have captured the attention and anxiety of Americans over the past two decades. Mass murders or massacres—the killing of four or more victims during a single event—are both frightening and tragic. They are frightening because they could happen to anyone, anytime, anyplace. Unlike other crimes, they are as likely to occur in a suburban shopping mall as in an urban slum, as likely in a small southern town as in a big city. They are tragic because so many innocent people die.