Moving Beyond the Legal Distinctions of Mass Causality Shooting Events: Reconsidering Coleman's Theory of Action

• In Event: Critical Theory and Violence: New Areas and Approaches

Abstract

The experience of a mass shooting has vastly different social and legal consequences in comparison to the experiences and effects of domestic terrorism or a hate-motivated shooting. Recent findings from an analysis of the United States Mother Jones Mass Shooting Dataset have highlighted multiple conceptual and legal discrepancies between definitions of active shooting incidents and the formal classification and charging of these events. This work builds on the results of a mixed methods study examining the relationship between the intersecting social identities of the shooter and the victims of the shooting and the classification and dispensation of these cases. Synthesizing findings from a classification study (n=139) of the United States Mother Jones Mass Shooting Dataset and an attributional analysis of sentencing transcripts from subset of the Mother Jones Database (n=42), this study considers the broader macrosocial contexts giving rise to the disparity in the classification of active shooting events from 1982 until 2024. Specifically, this work explores how the narratives underpinning sentencing decisions veil or highlight certain contextual factors of offending such as ideology, personal bias, and hidden masculinity. Overall, this project contributes to the development of locating individual purposive action within the broader historical, economic, and macrosocial contexts.

Author

• Amy Templar, The University of Queensland