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The objective of this study is to hone in on the contextual, social, and individual characteristics that influence lethal outcomes across shootings. Although most criminological research focuses on differential outcomes for gun violence relative to nongun violence, we argue that great insight can be drawn through examining shootings in isolation. We focus on five ways that shooting outcomes vary: the number of shots fired, the number of times the victim was hit, where the victim was hit, the number of victims that were hit, and whether the shooting resulted in a fatality. Building on the adversary effects hypothesis and public health research on the impact of gunshot wound volume and location, we examine the factors that account for variation across shooting outcomes. Our analysis of data from the Rochester Shooting Database suggests that both adversary effects and random factors influence shooting outcomes. In addition, the results also reveal that adversary effects are more important during some stages of a shooting than others. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Merton's "Social Structure and Anomie" seeks to explain how "socio-cultural" influences exert "definite pressures" to engage in non-conformity. Despite having a significant influence, few studies have assessed the degree to which Merton's propositions explain cross-national variation in levels of crime. Using data on national levels of homicide, data from the World Values Survey, and other structural controls, the present study assesses the degree to which deinstitutionalization, demoralization, and blocked opportunity interact to explain crime cross-nationally. Results provide a high degree of support for Merton's assertion that societal types characterized by relatively high levels of materialism and/or demoralization or deinstitutionalization suffer from higher levels of homicide. However, there is less support for Merton's assertion that inequality interacts with various societal patterns of means/ends integration in a meaningful way. Findings and implications for the utility of classical anomie as a general macro-level theory are discussed., (© The Author(s) 2015.)

Reintegrative shaming theory (RST) argues that social aggregates characterized by high levels of communitarianism and nonstigmatizing shaming practices benefit from relatively low levels of crime. We combine aggregate measures from the World Values Survey with available macro-level data to test this hypothesis. Additionally, we examine the extent to which communitarianism and shaming mediate the effects of cultural and structural factors featured prominently in other macro-level theoretical frameworks (e.g., inequality, modernity, sex ratio, etc.). Findings provide some support for RST, showing homicide to vary with societal levels of communitarianism and informal stigmatization. However, while the effects of modernity and sex ratio were mediated by RST processes, suppression was indicated for economic inequality. Implications for theory and research are discussed.