Sommer, Leuschner, and Scheithauer (2014) did an admirable job of reviewing and integrating research on school shootings across a broad array of studies that relied on varied conceptualizations, operational definitions, coding strategies, and samples of shootings. Given the inherent ambiguity of retrospective case studies, the authors assembled convincing evidence to show that school shootings are consistently linked to an identifiable set of problematic social relationships at school, including bullying, rejection by peers and romantic partners, conflicts with teachers, and perceiving oneself to be marginalized or victimized. The authors suggested that these specific phenomena reflect three overriding concepts that promote school violence—conflicts and other negative interactions, social standing, and perpetrator characteristics. Although we agree with Sommer et al.’s basic conclusions, we would like to offer a broad social psychological approach that provides a way of integrating most, if not all, of their findings under a single theoretical umbrella. In our view, all of the factors that Sommer ∗Address for correspondence Mark R. Leary, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA. E-mail: leary@duke.edu et al. identified as precursors of school shootings involve the perception that one has very low relational value. Human beings are highly motivated to be valued as relational partners and group members by other people, presumably because individuals who sought to be valued by other people (and, thus, established supportive social relationships) had a higher likelihood of survival and reproduction throughout human evolution relative than those who were unconcerned about being valued and accepted by other people as group members, friends, mates, and acquaintances (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Thus, a great deal of human behavior is directed toward leading others to regard their relationships with the individual as important or valuable—that is, to maintaining adequate relational value in other people’s eyes (Leary, 2001). In our view, perceptions of low relational value are a central feature of all of the categories of interpersonal problems identified by Sommer et al. Most obviously, both peer rejection and romantic rejection clearly convey that the rejector does not value having a relationship with the rejectee, whether that is a romantic relationship, a friendship, an acquaintanceship, or a group membership.