Becoming a Shooter: Illegal Gun Use Among Urban Youth

• In Event: Gun Violence and Mental Health

Abstract

Sociologists have long examined the structural roots of urban violence but have paid less attention to how guns shape social life. Drawing on 18 months of fieldwork and 37 interviews with young men in Chicago involved in illegal gun use, this study explores how youth adopt—and struggle to shed—the identity of a shooter. In neighborhoods where guns are widely available, this identity is not only possible but often desirable. The decline of gang control over firearms and the status of being a shooter intensify pressures to arm oneself and cultivate a violent reputation. Becoming a shooter involves rituals and public displays that embed gun carrying into social life. Once labeled, shedding this identity is difficult. Unlike other delinquency, gun violence has irreversible consequences, fueling long-term rivalries and cementing reputations both physically and digitally. The dilemma of unilateral disarmament—giving up a gun without assurance that others will do the same—makes desistance especially risky. Firearms are not just tools of violence but social objects that shape relationships, reputations, and daily life.

Author

• Megan Kang, Princeton University