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Mass violence incidents (MVIs) result in significant psychological distress for survivors and the broader community. Support services (mental health services, support groups, religious support) can buffer negative effects of MVIs and facilitate recovery. However, the extent to which community members are aware of and use support services post-MVIs is unknown. A probability sample of 5991 adults (M ean age = 45.6, SD = 17.6), mostly female (53%) and White (71%), were recruited from six communities that had experienced an MVI. Participants answered questions on their awareness and use of support services after the MVI and completed measures assessing predisposing, enabling, and need factors that may influence service use. Approximately 20% of participants reported they were aware of mental health services, 20% reported awareness of support groups, and 16% reported awareness of religious support. Younger participants with higher income (predisposing factors), high social support (enabling factor), and direct MVI exposure and psychological distress (need factors) were more likely to report awareness of support services. Of those aware of services, approximately 21% reported using support services. Those with direct MVI exposure and psychological distress were more likely to use each type of service. Otherwise, use of mental health services, support groups, and religious support varied across predisposing factors (race, age, income). Overall, findings suggest there is limited awareness of support services post-MVI, despite the well-documented mental health burden after these incidents. This suggests the need for improved communication about available services after MVIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ethos (00912131) is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Mass shootings are most frequently committed by white men. Yet, these white perpetrators often do not meet the same fatal fate as Black people who have committed lesser crimes, particularly in the United States. Furthermore, Black people with mental health issues in such situations are more commonly met with lethal force. This study investigates if disparities exist in the likelihood of being apprehended, taking one's own life, or being killed by police or others during a public mass shooting incident based on one's race and known mental health status. Using the Violence Project data, this study aids understanding of the causes and consequences of mass violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mass violence incidents (MVIs) involving firearms, commonly referred to as "mass shootings" have become increasingly frequent in the United States. These shootings often result in immediate casualties and have far-reaching psychological impacts on survivors, witnesses, and the broader community. This study aimed to assess the prevalence and risk factors of depression within affected communities. Population-based cross-sectional study. Data were collected from six communities affected by MVIs involving firearms that occurred between 2015 and 2020. Participants were randomly selected through address-based sampling, and depression was assessed using Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fifth Edition) diagnostic-level major depressive episode (MDE). Overall, the MDE prevalence was 17·2% since the MVI, 15·4% in the past year, and 8·2% in the past month. Significant risk factors for MDE since MVIs include high exposure to the incident (adjusted relative risk [aRR] = 1·32, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 19–1·60), being aged 18–29 years (aRR = 2·52, 95% CI: 1·61–3·95), being a woman (aRR = 1·58, 95% CI: 1·27–1·96), having low social support (aRR = 1·80, 95% CI: 1·46–2·22), and experiencing past sexual or physical trauma (aRR = 2·20, 1·52–3·19). Our study reveals a high burden of depression within communities affected by MVIs involving firearm use. Persons with high exposure to the MVIs and certain demographic groups had greater risks for MDE. These findings highlight the long-term mental health burden in communities affected by MVIs and underscore the necessity of providing mental health services in its aftermath. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ayer: Revista de Historia Contemporánea is the property of Asociacion de Historia Contemporanea and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Summary: Background: Most Americans believe that gun-free zones make locations more vulnerable to violent crimes, particularly active shootings. However, there is no empirical evidence regarding the impact of gun-free zones on protecting locations from violence. The objective of this study was to estimate the association between gun-free zones and active shootings. Methods: We used a pair-matched case-control study where cases were all US establishments where active shootings occurred between 2014 and 2020, and controls were randomly selected US establishments where active shootings could have but did not occur, pair-matched by establishment type, year, and county. Gun-free status of included establishments was determined via local laws, company policy, news reporting, Google Maps and posted signage, and calling establishments. Findings: Of 150 active shooting cases, 72 (48.0%) were determined to have occurred in a gun-free zone. Of 150 controls where no active shooting occurred, 92 (61.3%) were determined to be gun-free. After accounting for matched pairs, the conditional odds of an active shooting in gun-free establishments were 0.38 times those in non-gun-free establishments, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.19–0.73 (p-value = 0.0038). Several robustness analyses affirmed these findings. Interpretation: It is unlikely that gun-free zones attract active shooters; gun-free zones may be protective against active shootings. This study challenges the proposition of repealing gun-free zones based on safety concerns. Funding: This work was funded in part by the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research and the Arnold Foundation.

Can people really kill their neighbours – massively and out of hatred? Is it anthropologically possible? Massacres and genocides of neighbours have become a subcategory of mass violence studies over the past two decades. This scholarship implicitly refutes entire parts of anthropology, notably the Durkheimian tradition, for which society is organized to produce bonds and bonds are inherently irenic, while liberally using key anthropological concepts – intimacy, social relationships, and the figure of the neighbour. These terms are rarely defined or explored. This scholarship implicitly makes four articulated assumptions: neighbours entertain social relationships, that is the essence of neighbourliness; vicinity therefore equates sociality; therefore, when neighbours kill neighbours, they commit social violations; therefore, bonds can be overwhelmed by beliefs, hatred, or other circumstances. However, a close reading of the evidence provided by this historiography shows that descriptions of preexisting sociality are briefly sketched, typically stretching vicinity and mixing vicinity with sociality. By overlooking the scope and quality of relationships between victims and perpetrators, this scholarship tends to treat simple connections, or what network sociology would call "weak ties" with intimacy and kinship with sociality; it has also overlooked how human groups tend to organize and limit sociality across antagonist identities. Vicinity does not predict sociality, even in times of peace, even in holist societies, and even more so when relations across antagonist groups are mediated by rumours, envy, and cultural insecurity. This article proposes a way forward with the use of socio-metrics to better understand social ties and their proprieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its devastating impact on the population, the 1977–1979 famine in East Timor scarcely features in global studies of hunger. This article traces how the famine was dealt with in international politics during the Indonesian occupation (1975–1999), and in Timor-Leste during the United Nations administration and as an independent nation-state. The East Timor case extends our knowledge of the workings of conflict-induced famines, provides insights into the attempts by transnational activists and diasporic actors to mobilise international action on crises such as famine, and examines the options for dealing with famine and its community-wide legacies in post-conflict societies including under a transitional justice model. By analysing the activities of the country's transitional justice institution, the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (Comissão de Acolhimento, Verdade e Reconciliação, CAVR) and its successor, the Centro Nacional Chega! (CNC), as well as grassroots initiatives, the article outlines some of the challenges of delivering justice for famine victims and survivors in post-conflict societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civil wars constitute an element without which the history of humanity is incomprehensible. Since 1917, they alone claimed some 20 million lives and displaced 67 million people, standing alone as the undisputed primary form of armed conflict worldwide since the end of the Second World War. Their definition is crucial to understand them and to place them within intrastate and transnational policies. However, in its definition, the historical dimension has been systematically undervalued. In this paper, we address both a history of the concept and the elements that, in our opinion, help defining civil wars in historical terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do we repair and reconcile a society broken multiple times by years of political violence and cyclic mass atrocity events? Reconciliation processes in post-conflict societies tend to favour state-led peace processes to aid individuals and communities alike to heal, make sense of the past while also imagining and forging an interdependent future together. The Burundi Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), established in 2014, has the mandate to investigate past crimes and mass violence events dating from 1885 to the 4 December 2008 ceasefire with the aim of aiding truth-telling, reconciliation and transitional justice. The article comments on how the TRC shapes ongoing healing, reconciliation and transitional justice efforts in post-conflict Burundi. This article uses desk-based research to draw insights from documented works and reports of the TRC between 2018 and 2022. The TRC's findings sparked multiple narratives and public discourse in the Senate which further led to the reexamination of the 1972-1973 massacre, the legacy of colonisation and its impact in cementing ethnic divisions that led to cyclic mass violence in Burundi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past half-century, the «politics of memory» have emerged theoretically and practically as a key dimension of that constellation of non-punitive instruments of «redemption» from past atrocities that we are accustomed to approximate through the notions of «reparative» or «restorative justice». Far from in agreement, however, appear to date scholarly judgments on the deeper political significance assumed by this type of measure in the specific context of processes of transition to peace and democracy. The essay aims to reconstruct and discuss the main lines of development of this intense debate, focusing in particular on the controversial relationship between memories of violence, transitional justice, and collective agency that constitutes the central theme of this issue of Scienza & Politica.

IntroductionFor over two decades school shootings have become a significant concern, especially in the United States. Following a rampage school shooting, extensive resources are devoted to gathering all of the information surrounding the event. To date, few studies have compared completed to averted, or near-miss, school shootings. This study utilized the largest known sample of cases based in the United States in an effort to identify potential targets for prevention.MethodData were derived from the Averted School Violence database of incidents occurring between 1999 and 2020. Statistical analyses were conducted to determine how age, co-conspirator involvement, engagement in leakage warning behavior, and motives – in isolation and in combination – varied between groups.ResultsIn insolation, age, co-conspirator involvement, engagement in leakage warning behaviors, and motives were significantly different between groups. However, when these variables were combined into a logistic regression, co-conspirator involvement, engagement in leakage warning behaviors, and motives involving suicidal intent emerged as statistically significant predictors of group membership. Age no longer differentiated the two types of events.ConclusionThis study demonstrates that regardless of suspect age, threats of school violence must be taken seriously and investigated fully. Further, students reporting their peers’ engagement in shooting-related behaviors (e.g., bringing a gun to school, mapping school, etc.) was one of the most significant predictors that a plot will be thwarted. While perpetrators who planned with others had increased odds of their plot being identified, those acting alone still demonstrated leakage behaviors. If individuals in the school environment are educated regarding warning behaviors, lone perpetrators can still be identified and reported to authorities. The perpetrator’s emotional distress, in particular depressive or suicidal thoughts were also a significant predictor of a completed school shooting. Future research efforts should focus on the development and evaluation of peer training programs to assist in the detection of school shooting warning behaviors.

The correlation between mass shootings, firearm injuries, and mental health is an ongoing polarized debate within the U.S., making it essential to develop public policy on mental illness and firearm injuries exacerbated by a significant increase in firearm sales in March 2020. Although many mass shooters are labeled "mentally ill," mental illness is only present in a small minority of cases. Most mentally ill people are never violent but are more likely to be the victims of violence. Easy access to firearms and a triggering event deriving from social and economic inequalities are primary causes of mass shootings and growing online radicalization. Radicalization can easily lead to fatal firearm injuries, particularly for individuals with diagnosed or undiagnosed mental illness. Proposed solutions include permits for firearms purchase, including a 25-year-old age limit, universal background checks, and banning large-capacity magazines. Additionally, a speedy and effective law enforcement response is the sole factor and the most reliable way to stop a mass shooting once it has started. The research identified several other recommendations, including expanding Medicare and mental health care access, expanding school safety and law enforcement training, and promoting public education about mental health and firearm safety. • Easy access to firearms, triggering events, and online radicalization contribute to mass shootings. • Expanding mental health services and improving reporting systems can deter mass shootings. • Policy should incorporate steps to limit access to firearms. • A key solution is improved law enforcement response. • Public education on mental health and firearm safety is essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 challenges memory studies to analyze transmissions of discourses which justify mass violence and challenge the focus on denial. On the one hand, the Russian regime's claim to undertake "denazification" and prevent a "genocide" expounds the seminal role of cultural memory in politics. The weaponization of history, international law, and religion is widely accepted in Russian society and by global populisms. On the other hand, the invasion came as a surprise even to many experts because in politics, media, and research, justifications of mass violence are often dismissed as pretexts distracting from facts. Yet, the dismissal entails a major lacuna: we know too little about how justifications travel through societies and have a long-term impact. The article proposes that while acts of mass violence alter political and socio-economic realities, justifications of mass violence establish the linguistic and heuristic parameter for their subsequent juridical, moral, and scholarly evaluation. Normalizations of justifications contribute to perpetuating societal fault lines and set the frame for further conflict. The memory studies focus on transgenerational transmissions of psycho-social sequalae of violence laid the groundwork for understanding longue durée transmissions. However, memory studies have focused on denial as a key psychological and political driving force of transmissions, while, for instance, Russian and Serbian memory cultures are shaped by both denial and outright affirmations—not-even-denial—of past mass violence as model for present politics. Memory studies provide the appropriate conceptual space as a framework for addressing implicit normalizations and explicit affirmations of justifications of mass violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mass violence in the United States has been shown to cause trauma for survivors. These events may also create for survivors the experience of posttraumatic growth (PTG), the facets of which include personal strength, appreciation for life, new possibilities in life, spiritual change, and enhanced relationships with others. However, the role of collective efficacy and agency in the development of PTG following mass violence remains unknown. The purpose of this study is to assess the relationship between PTG and experiences of collective efficacy and agency among survivors of the Isla Vista, California tragedy of 2014. The mixed methods objective was to explore the interpretive context within which the agency and collective efficacy experiences occurred. Quantitative data collected in a questionnaire (n = 166) were used to inform the collection of qualitative interview data (n = 12). Participating in therapy, organizing community events, and making the decision to either leave or stay in Isla Vista positively correlated with PTG based on hierarchical regression analysis. Themes of personal agency, the importance of role, and participating in collective action emerged from interviews. This study offers unique methodological approaches to using mixed methods data to understand the experiences which contributed to PTG among survivors of a mass shooting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Various mass shooters have explained their violent actions as a response to failing at dominant forms of masculinity, including rejection from women and negative social comparisons to other men. The affect control theory of self (ACT-Self) posits that interactions that violate one's sense of self cause inauthenticity. This disequilibrium motivates behaviors that restore self-meanings, which may partially explain the link between challenges to the self and compensatory violence. Methodology In Study 1, we use ACT-Self to examine the relationship between inauthenticity, violent fantasies, and physical aggression in the autobiography of one mass shooter. We quantify self-sentiments and inauthenticity using ACT-Self measures and methods, and perform a thematic analysis of the shooter's interpretations of and responses to disconfirming events. In Study 2, we examine the relationship between these same concepts in a survey of 18-to-32-year-old men (N = 847). Findings Study 1 shows that the shooter's inability to achieve popularity, wealth, sex, and relationships with beautiful women (compared to other men) produced inauthenticity that he resolved through violent fantasies, increasingly aggressive behavior, and ultimately, mass violence. Study 2 finds that inauthenticity arising from reflected appraisals from women predicts self-reported violent fantasies and physical aggression in a convenience sample of men in emerging adulthood. Implications This work leverages a formal social psychological theory to examine the link between self-processes and violence. Our findings suggest that men's inauthenticity, particularly produced by reflected appraisals from women, is positively associated with violent fantasies and acts. Further work is needed to assess whether this relationship is causal and for whom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ObjectiveEpisodes of mass violence can increase mental health (MH) symptoms among survivors, possibly leading to increased MH service use. Within the context of an episode of mass violence that impacted a university community, we prospectively explore the predisposing (demographics, clinical levels of MH symptoms, victimization history, objective exposure, and social support), enabling (MH stigma, prior MH service use,), and need (MH symptoms, current social support) variables that influence posttragedy MH service use.MethodIn the original study, 593 students completed surveys at 2 time points during their first year of college. After the tragedy, students were invited to participate in a post event survey for a final sample of n = 142.ResultsA total of 14.3% of our sample accessed MH services post event. Results indicate that demographic factors were not related to MH service use. When examined jointly in a logistic regression, the final model suggests that prior MH service use and greater objective exposure were related to posttragedy MH service use. Other predisposing, enabling, and need factors were not associated with MH service use.ConclusionPrior experience with MH services may help survivors engage in services following a disaster. As disaster MH service models tend to target outreach to those with the greatest exposure, this may be why those survivors had greater MH service use. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Objective: To better understand the implications of applying different labels to perpetrators of mass violence. Method: Two experiments (Study 1: N = 307 college students, Study 2: N = 696 community sample recruited through Prolific Academic) were conducted to examine U.S. public perceptions of "terrorist," "lone wolf," and "mass shooter" (only in Study 2) labels. In both studies, participants were randomly assigned to consider one of the terms and respond to prompts about the assumed demographic characteristics and traits of the perpetrator. In Study 2, participants also responded to prompts about the appropriate consequences for the perpetrator and the best policies to address violence committed by that type of perpetrator. Results: Participants displayed much overlap in their characterizations and responses to the labels, but important distinctions emerged, particularly with the terrorist label. Across studies, the terrorist was perceived as more religious, while lone wolf and mass shooter were perceived as more likely to be White and U.S. citizens. The terrorist was characterized by group and ideological characteristics and more highly associated with several demonizing traits, while the lone wolf and mass shooter were characterized as more depressed, sad, and lonely. The terrorist label evoked less support for mental health treatment and more support for tracking associates of the perpetrator and increasing military involvement. Conclusions: Awareness of the different associations evoked by perpetrator labels may help to avoid biases in their application and can shape how mass violence and its consequences are conceptualized by the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholarship on mass public shootings has increased in recent years as comprehensive datasets have become more available. As a result, much is known about the contextual and offender related characteristics of such attacks. However, less research has been conducted on attacks that were planned but ultimately did not occur. Understanding how mass public shootings may be thwarted or averted is important for both policy and theoretical reasons. In this paper, we describe a new dataset of averted mass public shooting threats (N = 194) from 2000–2019 and compare them to mass public shootings that were completed during this time (N = 97). Several noteworthy findings emerged, including that nearly half of the averted cases were reported by a friend or acquaintance, most targeted a specific location or group, and averted cases were more likely to involve school targets and co-offenders. Implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While pitched battles were only a matter of men, the sieges under Alexander, particularly numerous and murderous, contributed to place non-combatants, and especially the women, at the heart of armed conflicts. Some of these women came from Greek cities, others from barbarian communities: were they subjected to distinct and differentiated treatment by the enemy according to their ethnic and geographical origin or, more generally, according to their status and their age? We propose to answer this question by analyzing two types of closely related violence, well present in the documentation relating to Alexander’s campaigns in Greece and the East: mass murders on the one hand, captivity and enslavement on the other hand. However, if this study aims to report on the fate of women in the grips of the royal army, it aims above all to understand what is at stake through the destructive practices affecting this category of population.

We already have forty years of experience in Latin America in the application of anthropology and forensic archaeology to the search for missing persons and investigations of gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. Despite this long trajectory of very important work, the most striking protagonists of meta-analysis in the forensic work literature and its impact in recent years have not been the forensic scientists themselves, but social scientists. This article introduces the dossier “Forensic Practices and Mass Violence: Contemporary Perspectives and Research Challenges,” a work that brings together practitioners —including relatives of the missing— with academic researchers, breaking down a structural, social and artificial divide. The joining of forces between academics and practitioners better reflects the work as a whole that includes and highlights the goals concerning search, recovery, analysis, and identification, but also those concerning restitution. This introduction emphasizes debates that are absent in many forensic science journals: the impact of politics on research and the political product of research, although we still have debates about questions of objectivity, neutrality, and the value of a family-driven or family-involved approach. In this dossier, we examine the adaptation and evolution of the discipline from its particular Latin American form, both in the different expressions it has taken in the region and in the way it has been expressed in the work of Latin American professionals in foreign cases such as that of the former Yugoslavia.

This paper systematically and empirically explores participation in the first 10 months of the Croatian Homeland War through theories of collective action. It tests the theory that in the face of indiscriminate violence, individuals will choose to participate in a conflict through joining an armed organization that can provide them with the resources to better survive. I hypothesize that as violence increases in a given area, the number of individuals joining the Croatian military forces will also increase. Using a dataset of daily event data and the number of participants per municipality, I test this hypothesis in a generalized linear model. The results show a significant relationship exists between violent events and increased participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We already have forty years of experience in Latin America in the application of anthropology and forensic archaeology to the search for missing persons and investigations of gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. Despite this long trajectory of very important work, the most striking protagonists of meta-analysis in the forensic work literature and its impact in recent years have not been the forensic scientists themselves, but social scientists. This article introduces the dossier "Forensic Practices and Mass Violence: Contemporary Perspectives and Research Challenges," a work that brings together practitioners --including relatives of the missing-- with academic researchers, breaking down a structural, social and artificial divide. The joining of forces between academics and practitioners better reflects the work as a whole that includes and highlights the goals concerning search, recovery, analysis, and identification, but also those concerning restitution. This introduction emphasizes debates that are absent in many forensic science journals: the impact of politics on research and the political product of research, although we still have debates about questions of objectivity, neutrality, and the value of a family-driven or family-involved approach. In this dossier, we examine the adaptation and evolution of the discipline from its particular Latin American form, both in the different expressions it has taken in the region and in the way it has been expressed in the work of Latin American professionals in foreign cases such as that of the former Yugoslavia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Scienza & Politica is the property of University of Bologna, Department of Political & Social Sciences Alma Mater Studiorum and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

ObjectiveGuided by conservation of resources theory, this study provides empirical data on students' psychosocial adjustment following a mass murder tragedy, what changed or did not change from their pretragedy adjustment levels, and their view on what helped most in the immediate aftermath.MethodStudents (n = 593) who participated in a study of college adjustment the year prior to a mass murder that affected the university community were recontacted following the tragedy, providing prospective, longitudinal data (n = 141 pretragedy Time 1 and posttragedy; n = 73 pretragedy Times 1 and 2 and posttragedy).ResultsFor both anxiety and depression, repeated-measures analysis of variance showed a significant Time × Resource Loss interaction. Students with any resource loss had a steeper incline in symptoms than did students reporting no resource loss. From pre- to posttragedy, there was an increase in psychological sense of school membership but no change in general self-efficacy and social support. Students with clinical levels of posttragedy distress reported more childhood trauma and depression symptoms at college entry. Student-initiated and -led memorial activities were rated as most helpful.ImplicationsPerceived resource loss is important in understanding the impact of the trauma on mental health and could be a part of intake for supportive services. Given that it was the students with greater prior trauma exposure and depression symptoms who were more likely to have clinical distress posttragedy, targeted outreach to current and former university counseling center clients to "check in" may be helpful to reach those who may be in most need. (PsycINFO Database Record

English Abstract: Mass exhumations and the mass unearthing of dead bodies are quite new phenomena in the history of humankind. The 'forensic turn' has led various disciplines to pay renewed attention to the dead and not only to the death. For a couple of decades, social anthropologists have been urged to (re)consider the materiality of death. This return of the dead bodies en masse has consequently made them look carefully at the ways in which corpses are dealt with in various situations of disasters or mass crime, but also made them aware of the various silences and denial mechanisms lastingly surrounding mass graves and buried corpses. This afterword aims to reflect on the way these silences and denial have shaped our disciplinary field and maintained some of its blind spots. French Abstract: Les exhumations et la mise au jour massives de cadavres sont des phénomènes plutôt nouveaux dans l'histoire de l'humanité. Le tournant médico-légal a conduit diverses disciplines à accorder une attention renouvelée aux morts et pas seulement à la mort. Pour leur part, les anthropologues sociaux ont été incités depuis quelques décennies à (re)considérer la matérialité de la mort. Ce retour en masse des cadavres les a, par conséquent, amenés à se pencher sur la manière dont les cadavres sont traités dans des situations de catastrophes ou de crimes de masse, mais aussi à prendre conscience des divers silences et mécanismes de déni qui entourent durablement les fosses communes et les cadavres enterrés. Cette postface vise à réfléchir à la manière dont ces silences et ces dénis ont façonné notre champ disciplinaire et maintenu certains de ses angles morts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gun violence is on the rise and a constant reality in the United States. Due to its breadth, volume, and complexity, the trauma of gun violence is a challenge for preachers to address from the pulpit. However, preachers cannot afford to ignore this traumatic reality due to our theological mandate to care for the (wounded) body of Christ and address the lingering effects of trauma. This article considers the traumatic impact of gun violence in the U.S. and offers guidance and encouragement for both trauma-responsive and trauma-aware preaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on disaster behavioral health presents significant methodological challenges. Challenges are even more complex for research on mass violence events that involve military members, families, and communities, due to the cultural and logistical considerations of working with this population. The current article aims to inform and educate on this specialized area of research, by presenting a case study on the experience of designing and conducting disaster behavioral health research after a mass violence event in a military setting: the 2013 mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, in Washington, D.C. Using the case example, the authors explore methodological challenges and lessons learned from conducting research in this context, and provide guidance for future researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to examine how recent incidents of planned mass violence in high schools within the United States were successfully averted. Using the Averted School Violence database, this study utilizes a mixed‐methods content analysis approach to analyze 82 incidents of averted mass violence in high schools that occurred post‐Columbine era. The following three themes were identified: attack motives and logistics, plot discovery, and attack aversion. Implications for professional school counselors in preventing similar mass violence attacks in the future are discussed, including fostering trusting relationships between students and adults, providing education to parents about social media platforms and proper firearms storage, establishing threat assessment teams, and educating parents, students, and school personnel about warning signs for violence. Key points: School counselors play key roles in preventing mass violence as a part of their comprehensive school counseling programs.Based on a mixed‐methods content analysis, implications for school counselors in preventing mass violence attacks are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In the twenty-first century, literatures from Central and Eastern Europe are marked by a boom of documentary fiction portraying complicity Nazi perpetration, Soviet terror, or other instances of 20th century mass violence and totalitarianism. Since understanding the past serves requirements of the present, the boom prompts the question: Why the interest in past complicities now? My hypothesis is that the texts address convergences between involvements in past acts of mass violence and current forms of participation in wrongdoings in neoliberalism. While these issues differ profoundly, they are related: structurally, both present the challenge of forming a nuanced notion of participation. Historically, they are related since justifications of past involvements have established the terminology, narratives, and heuristics in which terror, repression, and mass violence are subsequently discussed, thus forming the frame for negotiating current problematic involvements. Method: Critical discourse analysis is used to scrutinize the legal concept of complicity and combined it with close readings of passages from four literary texts to outline how attention to reciprocity in language can enhance our understanding of problematic involvement. Results: Literary portrayals of historical complicity are ambivalent; they can help to find models for comprehending issues of the present in cultural memory, but they can also serve to establish distance between present and past to appease the sense that all is not quite well, even after the demise of Nazi and Soviet terror. The article outlines two modes of distancing: a) spacio-temporal distancing of the commemorating point of view in ‘the West’ from the portrayed violence in ‘the East’, and b) moral distancing that casts the audience as superior to complicit characters. Conclusion: By pressing for analytic or consoling distance, both strategies of distancing amount to a complicity with the transmission of discourses that justify, excuse, or deny mass violence and totalitarian terror.

How do members of extremist groups think about violence conducted by individual members on the group's behalf? We examine the link between extremism‐motivated violence and extremist groups through a case study of misogynist incels, a primarily online community of men who lament their lack of sexual success with women. To learn how misogynist incels talk about mass violence committed by members of their group, we conduct a qualitative content analysis of 3,658 comments relating to the 2018 Toronto van attack, in which self‐declared incel Alek Minassian drove a van into pedestrians, killing 10 and injuring 16. We find overwhelming support among self‐proclaimed incels for the attack and violence more generally. Incels viewed mass violence as instrumental, serving the following four main purposes: garnering increased attention, exacting revenge, reinforcing masculinity, and generating political change. Our findings indicate the need to examine misogynist incels as a potential terrorist group and male supremacism as a basis for terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Traditional and social media coverage of acute mass violence (AMV; e.g., terrorism, mass shootings) create an environment where the possibility of being the victim of AMV is constantly portrayed and this media exposure has been linked to distress among people not directly affected. We explored how initial emotional reactions to media exposure to AMV, threat perception, and core beliefs may mediate the media exposure to current anxiety or depression symptoms relationship. Method: Adolescents (N = 342) in the United States aged 13–17 years old (M = 15.43, SD = 1.29; 71.6% female) completed online surveys asking about time spent watching AMV coverage in the media, initial emotional reactions to the media coverage, threat perception, core beliefs, and current anxiety and depression symptoms. Mediation was tested with PROCESS (Hayes, 2018) for anxiety and depression. Sex and having lived in a community exposed to an AMV event were control variables. Results: Bootstrap confidence intervals (95%) for the unstandardized indirect effects of core beliefs, initial anxious emotional reactions, and personal threat perception based on 5,000 bootstrap samples did not include zero, providing support for mediation. Core beliefs and initial anxious emotional reactions were mediators between time-consuming AMV-related media and current anxiety symptoms. Personal threat perception and initial anxious emotional reactions mediated the relationship between time-consuming AMV-related media and current depression symptoms. Conclusion: The impact of media exposure to AMV on depression and anxiety can be understood through its influence on initial anxious reactions, core beliefs, and threat perception. Public Policy Relevance Statement: Media exposure to episodes of mass violence can impact the mental health of adolescent viewers through their initial emotional reactions to the coverage; how the coverage influences their beliefs about the world, other people, and themselves; and their perception of threat. These social cognitions can be a target for public mental health intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Of the up to eighteen million men who served in the Wehrmacht during the Second World War, ten million were deployed at one time or another between 1941 and 1944 in the conflict against the Soviet Union, a theatre of widespread and sustained mass violence. In order to determine how extensive complicity in Nazi crimes was among the mass of the regular German soldiers, it is necessary first of all to define what constitutes a criminal undertaking. The sheer brutality of the German conduct of war and occupation in the Soviet Union has overshadowed many activities that would otherwise be rightly held up as criminal acts.

Background: Most Americans believe that gun-free zones make locations more vulnerable to violent crimes, particularly active shootings. However, there is no empirical evidence regarding the impact of gun-free zones on protecting locations from violence. The objective of this study was to estimate the association between gun-free zones and active shootings., Methods: We used a pair-matched case-control study where cases were all US establishments where active shootings occurred between 2014 and 2020, and controls were randomly selected US establishments where active shootings could have but did not occur, pair-matched by establishment type, year, and county. Gun-free status of included establishments was determined via local laws, company policy, news reporting, Google Maps and posted signage, and calling establishments., Findings: Of 150 active shooting cases, 72 (48.0%) were determined to have occurred in a gun-free zone. Of 150 controls where no active shooting occurred, 92 (61.3%) were determined to be gun-free. After accounting for matched pairs, the conditional odds of an active shooting in gun-free establishments were 0.38 times those in non-gun-free establishments, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.19-0.73 (p-value = 0.0038). Several robustness analyses affirmed these findings., Interpretation: It is unlikely that gun-free zones attract active shooters; gun-free zones may be protective against active shootings. This study challenges the proposition of repealing gun-free zones based on safety concerns., Funding: This work was funded in part by the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research and the Arnold Foundation., Competing Interests: The authors, PR, CM, AG, SR DW and CB, declare no competing interests., (© 2024 The Author(s).)