Ten people were killed on May 14 in a mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo. Twenty-one were killed just 10 days later on May 24 in a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex. Eight days later, four were killed by a gunman at a hospital in Tulsa.
At least one group believes something can be done: the “massacre generation.”
The massacre generation is a term coined by then-18-year-old Julia Savoca Gibson in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed describing her life as “framed by violence.” As members of the massacre generation ourselves, we understood — and wondered how that experience might shape Americans’ attitudes about mass shootings. We find that this group is much more likely than earlier generations to attribute mass shootings to a lack of government action, and to believe such tragedies could be prevented if the government would intervene.
What is the “massacre generation?”
We use “massacre generation” to refer to Americans who were under 18 when the Columbine High School shooting took place in 1999 or who were born since, which would be 1982 or later. While not the first school shooting in U.S. history, Columbine changed the way Americans conceptualize mass shootings, especially in schools. The term refers to a generation that has lived with the consistent threat of mass violence and does not remember a time before that threat seemed constant.
The shared experiences with gun violence shape whom this group blames for mass shootings — and who it believes could make change.
How we did our research
We analyzed data from eight national public opinion surveys conducted over nearly 20 years, from 1999 to 2018. All were conducted after major mass shootings in the United States. These surveys were fielded and sponsored by a variety of organizations: CNN, USA Today and Gallup (1999-2001), CNN and the Opinion Research Corp. (2011-2015), and the University of Kansas, Brigham Young University-Idaho and Survey Sample International (2017-2018). All were conducted either by telephone or online and asked a nearly identical question about whether mass shootings can be prevented, generally phrased as “Which of the following statements come closer to your overall view?” Respondents could choose a version of one of these two responses: “Government and society can take action that will be effective in preventing shootings like the one in ____ from happening again” or “Shootings like the one in ____ will happen again regardless of what action is taken by government and society.”
Each time pollsters asked the question, they referred to a specific and recent mass shooting, with two exceptions. In the 2001 poll and 2017 survey, respondents were asked, respectively, about shootings in schools and mass shootings generally. The other surveys specifically referred to shootings in Colorado (Columbine, 1999), Arizona (Tucson, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords rally, 2011), Connecticut (Newtown Elementary School, 2012), Charleston (Emanuel AME Church, 2015) and Texas (Santa Fe High School, 2018). Some of these were referred to by more than one poll.
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Younger people’s attitudes began changing sharply in 2012, the year of Sandy Hook
From 2012 and beyond, younger people have been increasingly likely to believe that government action could prevent mass shootings. When surveys provided respondents’ ages, as in the surveys sponsored by the University of Kansas and Brigham Young University-Idaho in 2017 and 2018, we find that for every one year decrease in age, the likelihood of believing government can prevent mass shootings goes up 1.8 and 1 percent respectively.
After 2012, we find that members of the massacre generation — those who were under 18 when Columbine took place — are significantly more likely to believe that government action could prevent mass shootings than every other generational cohort, as you can see in the figure below.
Since we didn’t find this result in earlier years, we can conclude that the belief that government can take action to prevent mass shootings results not just from being young but from coming of age with a high number of high-profile mass shootings.
That may be in part because 2012 was a turning point for news coverage about mass violence in the United States. In that year, 16 high-profile mass shootings left 88 people dead, including incidents at several schools, at a “Batman” movie screening and at a Sikh temple. The 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, in particular, kicked off a new phase in the discourse about preventing mass shootings, especially those that target children.
Further, anyone entering adulthood over a decade after Columbine had gone through “active shooter” drills that earlier generations did not. By 2012, some 18-year-olds may have endured up to five active shooting drills a year for over a decade. Essentially, they have learned to expect this type of mass violence.
We believe that this steady stream of mass shootings and active shooting drills has triggered young people’s anxiety and put shootings forefront in their minds, shaping their tendency to blame government for inaction.
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To be sure, this does not mean young people are united on what type of government action can prevent mass shootings. Polling by ABC News/Washington Post last year revealed an ideological divide on certain gun regulation policies, especially those that may be implemented through presidential action. In recent years, however, we find that more than 40 percent of Republicans who belong to the massacre generation still believe that some government action can prevent mass shootings, as seen in the figure below. We expect the shootings of the last two weeks to reinforce this attitude.
Will they prompt action?
In a 1989 article, political scientist Deborah Stone wrote, “difficult conditions become problems only when people come to see them as amenable to human action.” If today’s young people perceive gun violence as something the government can fix, they may increasingly mobilize to influence gun policies. We’ve already seen some suggestions that they will.
After the Parkland, Fla., high school shooting in 2018, its survivors organized national marches and other activities demanding more gun regulation. While that wave of activism may have receded, the experiences that gave rise to it remain. Should a majority of this cohort come to agree on what policies are needed, the massacre generation could shape the gun regulation debate as it comes to dominate the U.S. electorate.
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Abigail Vegter (@abigailvegter) is an assistant professor of political science at Berry College, where her research focuses on public opinion, religion and politics, and gun politics in the United States.
Alexandra Middlewood (@alexmiddlewood) is an assistant professor of political science at Wichita State University, where her research focuses on gun politics, public opinion, political behavior and gender.