Armed Victims: The Ego Function of Second Amendment Rhetoric

Abstract

On June 10, 2014, Emilio Hoffman was shot and killed in a gym locker room and a teacher was wounded in a Troutdale, Oregon school. The shooter killed himself after a shootout with police. Two days earlier, a couple shot two police officers at point blank range in a restaurant, covered one of them with a Gadsden flag and a swastika, and then later killed an armed civilian who tried to stop them in a Walmart. They died by their own hands. On June 5, 2014, a gunman at Seattle Pacific University shot one student and injured two others before being stopped with pepper spray and disarmed by a student. This came on the heels of another shooting in May in Isla Vista, California, where a man stabbed his three roommates to death, shot and killed three others, and injured 13 others—eight by gunshot and four by hitting them with his car. He died by his own hand. Similar incidents have received widespread attention: Newtown, Connecticut; Virginia Tech; and Fort Hood stand out in recent memory because of their coverage by the mass media. However, these events represent only a small fraction of gun violence in the United States. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence reports that “on average, 32 Americans are murdered with guns every day and 140 are treated for a gun assault in an emergency room.” As was the case in the killings at ThurstonHigh School, ColumbineHigh School, and Virginia Tech, many expected stronger gun control legislation