DEATH ANXIETY AND GUN VIOLENCE

Gun violence has become a tragic staple of American society. According to the Gun Violence Archive, in 2022, at the time of this publication, over 27,000 people have died from gun violence. There have been 411 mass shootings (the group defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot or killed, excluding the shooter). Aside from mass shootings, about 124 people die every day in other acts of gun violence. In response to this violence, Americans differ drastically. Some are quick to blame guns, while others rush towards other explanations, fearing that the right to bear arms will one day be taken away entirely. Like most things in life, neither the issue nor its solution is simple or one-dimensional. There are myriad social, political, and historical layers. We want to explore one such angle, which is the intersection of death anxiety and its relationship to attitudes towards guns. Incorporating Becker’s work on death anxiety, the following experts discuss how we can better understand our underlying polarization and lack of agreement on gun policy in light of our fear of mortality. Gun violence represents one of the most contentious (and deadly) issues of our time. We hope that this knowledge can help create deeper understanding, empathy, and dialogue. Please scroll on, or click the following links to read our interviews with Jeff Greenberg, Sheldon Solomon, Kirk Schneider, Pete Kurtz-Glovas, and Joshua Hart.

In 2022 so far, over 27,000 people have died from gun violence and there have been 411 mass shootings.
Gun Violence Archive

How can the lens of death anxiety/Terror Management Theory help us understand the patterns of gun violence in this country?

Guns are intimately connected with the reality of death. Guns help people bring premature death to others (and themselves in the case of suicide), and some people view having guns as providing power to stave off their own deaths. Becker argued that the power to kill gives people a sense that they have control over, even mastery over life and death. Having guns provides a sense of power (indeed, handling guns increases testosterone) and psychological security. For non-gun owners, guns represent a threat of death. So there are two opposite ways in which guns relate to terror management – they can reduce death anxiety for some, while increasing it for others. Furthermore, guns have become tied to particular political worldviews.

In this country, the right to bear arms is indeed an amendment in the Constitution and it is in there because of a suspicion and fear of oppressive governments that may infringe on local and individual rights. This stems from the value guns had in liberating the colonies from being controlled by the British monarchy. This is part of the conservative worldview in the U.S., which emphasizes individual freedoms and states’ rights over more centralized federal control. In this worldview, the federal government is mainly there to protect Americans from foreign threats—the military and spy organizations. American liberals and leftists put more faith in centralized government and are more concerned with using social control to protect the rights of marginalized groups and to serve collective interests that might be threatened by individual liberties. These ideas are pertinent to understanding why some Americans are very protective of gun rights and others want moderate or extreme gun control.

The pattern of gun violence in this country is a more complex and very different issue. Most gun violence reflects people low in power seeking to get things they want or protect themselves or things or people they care about. People with more money and social power get a sense of significance and protection from death from those resources. People without those things sometimes resort to seeking to obtain money and a sense of power through gun violence or the threat of it (robberies, drug dealing). A lot of the violence also comes from getting caught up in mob or gang activities surrounding profitable but illegal (and therefore unregulated) businesses, i.e. the drug trade. Guns provide a way to protect such interests, so a lot of inner-city violence reflects that. Gangs also provide a basis of feeling powerful and connected, an especially appealing one for kids coming from homes with a lot of violence and disharmony. Adding to that may be the sense of the unfairness and insignificance experienced by marginalized groups.
Another increasingly troubling form of gun violence on the rise to address is of course mass shootings. Often these acts are done by people who have no sense of meaning in life or their own sense of significance, and therefore are staring only inevitable death in the face. Current issues like the pandemic, salient social injustices, political polarization, the invasion of the Ukraine, etc., all threaten people’s sense that life is meaningful and their own lives are valuable. Lacking those terror management resources, people struggling the most with these issues lash out in anger and despair, often to make some mark on the world, such as a mass shooting, before checking out.

Often these acts are done by people who have no sense of meaning in life or their own sense of significance, and therefore are staring only inevitable death in the face.

In other cases, mass shootings and other hate-crime shootings are motivated by animus towards a specific group of people (e.g. Blacks, LGBTQIA+ people). Typically, the underlying motivation is a sense that these groups are threatening to the meaning-providing worldview that the culture provides (or at least the values that the particular individual clings to in order to manage their potential terror). The Great Replacement Theory (that the white population is being “replaced” by non-European immigrants) is an example of that. If the individual subscribes to a white supremacist worldview, ridding the world of non-whites can be viewed as a way to feel valuable and significant, battling a perceived evil. Police shootings of civilians are sometimes rooted in a similar view of Blacks or Hispanics as threats, but more fundamentally, they usually reflect a fear of imminent death; with so many armed citizens, cops are quick to resort to violence when they feel threatened.

Finally, a lot of gun violence we see has to do with jealousy and revenge when relationships don’t work out, which can also be understood from a terror management perspective. It is a way for men to try to control women, guard against “mate-poaching,” and/or seek revenge. For such men, their relationships are a central basis of their meaning in life and sense of significance and so they take extreme measures when these are threatened. Typically these are men who have histories of insecure attachment and few other bases of self-worth.

Terror Management Theory helps us understand the process of doubling down on previously held beliefs in times of threat. Can you talk about how a mass shooting of such tragic proportions can cause an increase in both anti and pro-gun views? 

After mass shootings, sales of the weapons used typically go up, along with outcries for more gun control. So there is no doubt that these events typically intensify either the belief we need more guns for our own and our families’ protection, more security guards and teachers with guns, or that we need much better gun control (the brady bill, limiting kinds of guns, requiring licenses, etc.) to keep mentally ill and malevolent people from having access to highly effective guns for killing. Both are responses to threat of death, and which political worldview one is invested in determines which set of responses is more likely for a given individual.

Terror Management Theory (TMT) discusses the importance of our worldview and shared reality for our psychological stability. But, the worldviews exhibited by each side of the political spectrum can differ drastically. Even when children are dying, there is still polarization and lack of agreement from policy standpoints – is this related to fear of death?

TMT research has demonstrated that death reminders (mortality salience) instigate cultural worldview defense and self-esteem striving.  Cultural worldviews are not monolithic however; consequently, specific manifestations of cultural worldview defense and self-esteem striving ultimately depend on specific values and beliefs that can vary considerably within cultures.
 
Shooting deaths surely render mortality poignantly and painfully salient, engendering diametrically opposite reactions in the US as a function of increasingly non-overlapping and mutually exclusive worldviews of conservative and liberal Americans. This in turn reinforces and amplifies political polarization and discord.

Specifically, guns are central to many white conservative Americans’ personal and social identity.  In Guns, Identity, and Nationhood, Mugambi Jouet (2019) argues that:

…guns have become symbols of a worldview under which armed patriots must stand ready to defend America from “tyranny,” “big government,” “socialism,” and other existential threats. In particular, the U.S. conservative movement does not merely perceive the right to bear arms as a means of self-defense against criminals, but as a safeguard against an oppressive government that “patriots” may have to overthrow by force…guns foster a sense of belonging in this conception of nationhood. This worldview is not solely limited to politicians, elites, or activists, as it can encompass rank-and-file conservatives. Group identification can rest on sharing radical beliefs that enhance cohesion, including rallying against perceived threats. This mindset helps explain resistance to elementary reforms to regulate firearms. If one believes that an unbridled right to bear arms is not only key to protecting the United States, but also key to what it means to be an American, concessions on gun control become difficult to envision. While conservatives in other Western democracies tend to support significant gun control, a key dimension of American exceptionalism is the relative normalization of a conservative identity in which firearms have acquired a peculiar symbolic value.
Liberal Americans on the other hand generally view guns in a more utilitarian fashion; acknowledging their value and importance for self-defense, hunting, and sport – rather than as essential components of personal and social identity and self-worth.

 
In the wake of shooting deaths, white American conservatives generally buy more guns and become more vociferously opposed to any limits on gun ownership or use. The result: more guns = more death = higher mortality salience = greater denigration of liberals. An ever-escalating polarization and death spiral!

If one believes that an unbridled right to bear arms is not only key to protecting the United States, but also key to what it means to be an American, concessions on gun control become difficult to envision.

In the wake of shooting deaths, liberal Americans generally favor stricter efforts to regulate/reduce gun ownership and use, which is demonstrably effective throughout the world for reducing gun violence, BUT poses a mortal threat to the core identity of white conservative Americans. The result is the same as before: higher mortality salience = greater denigration of liberals by conservatives = escalating polarization and death spiral!  [Note: liberals are now buying more guns in response to gun violence. This is perhaps a proximal defense to being in an increasingly gun-saturated and violent political culture.]

In sum, guns have very different meanings/purposes for Americans as a function of their political views, which are amplified in response to the mortality salience that results from shooting deaths.

Can Becker/TMT help us understand the polarization seen amongst Americans in response to mass shootings?

In my view, yes. Becker and TMT’s positions on death anxiety, which can also be understood as a sense of insignificance – helplessness and groundlessness – helps us to understand the primal reaction many Americans experience in the face of such shootings. Whereas conservatives tend to experience this primal reaction in the direction of the potential for revoking their right to bear arms and sovereignty as an individual, liberals tend to experience it in the direction of greater vulnerability to irresponsible gun owners and our gun-obsessed culture. These are two very different reactions to the same basic primal fear: that of being wiped away and rendered irrelevant. But they are nonetheless reactions or defenses that can lead to polarized stances.

What are the wider implications of this kind of polarization – how does it relate to issues such as white supremacy, conspiracy theories, outgroup violence, etc.?

I view each of these issues – in fact absolutist stances in general – as products of the polarized mind, or the fixation on single points of view to the utter exclusion of competing points of view. Polarized minds are largely based on fear, a very primal fear that Otto Rank calls “urangst,” or anxiety that originates in the groundlessness and helplessness of birth, of being “thrown” into life. This is the point at which the child learns about “otherness” and the threats or possibilities of otherness. It is also the point at which a range of defenses (polarizations) emerge to buffer that fear of otherness. Put another way, primal anxiety forms the template for most if not all future anxieties and traumas; depending on how that anxiety is handled (e.g., by the child, its caretakers, and the culture), it either drives the child toward a fear-based and thus polarized life, or a more flexible, discovery-oriented life.

I would further speculate, based on my personal and professional experience, that polarized stances, from white supremacy to conspiracy theories to violence (Left or Right) is associated with its own particular form of primal wounding. This wounding is either transmitted over generations or directly and actually experienced during the course of the extremist’s life – or both transmitted and directly experienced. Every polarization provides a refuge of a sort. It “protects” the individual or culture from the ambiguities and ultimately groundlessness of being “thrown” into life. But that protection can too often be turned into destruction, when skills for handling the deepest wounds are lacking.

Every polarization provides a refuge of a sort…But that protection can too often be turned into destruction.

Is there a role of existential therapy in reducing polarization/inflexible thinking?

Definitely, because existential therapy or existential principles of practice are designed specifically to help people work with, become more present to, and eventually see beyond the narrow identifications of their anxieties. In a nutshell, existentially oriented therapy (and particularly experientially focused existential therapy) helps people to coexist with and make the best of the contrasts and contradictions of their own and others’ lives. This makes for a messier life to be sure, but also, for many, a richer one, where the lure of possibilities outweighs the (pseudo) security of fixation, dogma, and absolutism.

In thinking about your conflict mediation work, what advice would you give Americans who are struggling to have conversations around gun violence?

Join in the supportive, structured dialogue movements, such as Braver Angels, Nonviolent Communications, and the Experiential Democracy Dialogue (a one-on-one, concertedly intimate exchange between people on highly contrasting sides of a cultural or political issue). These movements are anchored by ground rules and efforts to learn about and understand the other vs. presuming upon or directly trying to change the other’s mind. Instead of resolving conflict, the latter approach almost invariably leads to increases in conflict, or what I call the vicious cycle of polarization (because you’re literally and figuratively pushing the other into the primal dread that they’ve designed their lives to avoid). With regard to gun violence in particular, such supportive and structured approaches at the least tend to humanize the identified “other,” and at best provide a basis for common ground, such as occurred in a recent Braver Angels exchange between a gun rights advocate and a gun control advocate. In this poignant interchange, and despite deep disagreements, they both converged on the importance of gun safety, and means of promoting that safety as a potential and actionable common ground. For more information visit https://braverangels.org/braving-the-gun-divide/. You can also read more about these movements in my recent book, The Depolarizing of America.

You have looked into extremism and people who become radicalized. What parallels do you see with gun violence in the US, our country’s relationship to guns overall, and white supremacy?

The United States and White Supremacists both view guns as an extension of masculinity. Guns are seen as tools that enhance a man’s power to defend himself, to defend his wife and family, and to defend his country. The AR-15 specifically is glorified in both circles for both practical and aesthetic reasons.

One of the biggest traits of note among perpetrators of mass violence, particularly perpetrators who express a white supremacist ideology, is an obsession with guns and the power or image that comes with them. The AR-15 is without a doubt the preferred weapon of choice for gun enthusiasts in the United States, which itself brings up patriotic images of soldiers defending the country (the gun itself having much in common with the M4 Carbine Rifle used by the US Military). However, it is also the preferred weapon of mass shooters from an aesthetic lens. We saw its use in Buffalo most recently, which itself intentionally played on the same politics and aesthetics of the Christchurch shooting.

There is also the question of who guns are for, and what purpose they serve. Guns like a 9mm, AR-15, or pistol grip pump action shotgun are designed and marketed for home or personal defense. Who is the owner defending themselves from? When people say they fear their house might be robbed by criminals or thugs, or that someone might try to rob them on the street, there is often an implicit racial element associated with that fear.

There is a type of death anxiety that underpins the idea that a country is being “stolen” from someone, or that their heritage is somehow being erased or replaced.

Do you think death anxiety plays a role in who is drawn to extremism and the power that guns confer?

Death Anxiety absolutely plays a role in who is drawn to extremism. Specifically, Violent Extremism can be attractive to people who are failures in other realms of their lives and feel that when they are gone no one will remember them. How then can they be remembered? How can they leave a mark during their lives and be remembered? In the case of radicalized white supremacists, that answer is often to commit acts of violence.

As to the power that guns confer, it is by no means lost on white supremacists who carry out mass shootings. Both Elliot Rodger (the Isla Vista shooter) and Eric Harris (one of the Columbine shooters) had quotes in the documents they left behind that indicated as much:

“I am fucking armed. I feel more confident, stronger, more God-like” – Eric Harris

“After I picked up the handgun, I brought it back to my room and felt a new sense of power. I was now armed. “Who’s the alpha male now, bitches?” – Elliot Rodger

There is a type of death anxiety that underpins the idea that a country is being “stolen” from someone, or that their heritage is somehow being erased or replaced.

White supremacists often cite the feeling of the country being “taken away from them.” What have you found in your research to be underlying that feeling – could it be related to death anxiety?

There is a type of death anxiety that underpins the idea that a country is being “stolen” from someone, or that their heritage is somehow being erased or replaced. Among white supremacists this belief is called The Great Replacement, the idea that racial minorities are working to replace white people demographically in the West. It is my belief that this fear is in part driven by death anxiety, the blind fear that one day you will be gone and the world will continue without you, perhaps even turning into something unrecognizable.

The response to this fear of a Great Replacement is effectively to carry out the same actions they fear will happen to them, but prioritizing the supremacy of the white people instead.

How does the government’s response to gun violence relate to our history of perpetuating that same violence and supremacy in terms of who has the power in this country?

Governments are forced to take action when a market fails to provide a certain good or service efficiently or safely to the population (ex: public utilities, public schools, etc.) or when agreed-upon power structures are threatened directly (ex: police response to bank robbery costing more than was taken from the bank in order to defend institutions of private ownership and wealth accumulation). When we put these theories of government response into the historical context of the US, we can see very quickly that for most of the country’s history, racist violence was perpetrated at an institutional level and because of that there was no interest in rectifying individual acts of racist violence. The ramifications of this extend to today.

Over the years there have been various conspiracies regarding mass shootings, in particular the idea of a “false flag shooting” (that the shooting was orchestrated by the gov’t/forces beyond the shooter as a larger plan to disarm the population). Is there a relationship to conspiracy theories and traumatic events? If so, is this related to death anxiety?

I want to preface my responses by saying that I’m making educated guesses. Research on the psychology of conspiracy belief is picking up steam, but still cannot answer many of these questions. I believe that traumatic events tend to elicit conspiracy thinking, because conspiracy theories help people maintain a sense of meaning in life and the belief that the world is basically a decent place. Conspiracy theories, by definition, attribute terrible happenings to specific groups of powerful people. By implication, the supposed perpetrators can be stopped, and the terrible things would then stop happening. So there is a kind of utilitarian psychological logic to them. I don’t know if conspiracy believers are more prone to death anxiety than others, but I do think that existential concerns, broadly speaking, lie at the heart of attempts to understand seemingly incomprehensible events, like mass shootings, in such a way as to preserve the sense of a benevolent universe. The false flag theories are the most obvious example because they literally deny the existence of the terrible events, as opposed to simply blaming them on a cabal.

What are some of the psychological factors that you have found to motivate belief in conspiracy? Are some people more prone to these than others? If so, why?

In my research, the strongest predictor of generic conspiracy belief was the personality trait dimension of schizotypy. People higher on this dimension tend to be generally suspicious and untrusting, as well as somewhat eccentric. They’re more willing to entertain non-mainstream beliefs, and they are less likely to trust the official story. Other research suggests that part of this might be related to need for uniqueness or narcissism – it feels good to think differently from others, and gives a sense of having special insight. There are cognitive factors as well, related to information processing styles. It is not a simple phenomenon with a single cause, that’s for sure.

Another important piece is political motivation. Obviously, supporters of second amendment gun rights are motivated to find explanations for mass shootings that avoid blaming access to firearms. Whenever a theory, conspiratorial or not, seems to validate one’s preexisting ideologies, then it will seem appealing.

Conspiracy theories help people maintain a sense of meaning in life and the belief that the world is basically a decent place.

What are the larger implications of conspiratorial beliefs?

In a context where conspiracies are common, conspiracy beliefs might serve as important red flags (think of totalitarian societies). But otherwise, these beliefs are probably unhelpful to efforts to understand reality, because they are often, in my opinion, dogmatically opposed to mainstream thinking and things like scientific consensus and expert opinion. Scientists and other experts aren’t always right, of course, but they’re more likely to be right on issues within their sphere of expertise than laypeople are. So, conspiracy beliefs can serve as red herrings that prevent the general public from true knowledge, which can be harmful. Take climate change – those who believe it is a hoax have created a narrative that undermines belief in the phenomenon and prevents policy makers from coming together to try to come up with solutions. Similarly, the belief that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” undermines confidence in democratic processes and institutions. In the area of gun violence, the conspiracy theory that Democratic politicians are going to take away peoples’ guns causes people to rush out to buy more of them, thus increasing the likelihood of more tragedies down the line.

In an era of increasing polarization, conspiracy theories can add fuel to the fire. Does psychology tell us anything about how society can combat misinformation?

Unfortunately, most of the psychology I’m familiar with casts a rather dismal view on the possibility of combating misinformation and persuading people to move out of their ideological enclaves. Two potentially fruitful strategies come to mind. First, if people can be prodded to think of their identity in the broadest possible terms (e.g., human being) instead of parochial ones (e.g., liberal or conservative, Black or White, etc.), then they’ll be more open-minded about some issues. Second, when people feel more secure – like they belong, are loved by others, live meaningful lives, and that things are going to be all right – they are less cognitively rigid and hence more open to persuasion. But if people were any good at implementing those strategies, we wouldn’t be having this conversation!