AMID A RECENT SPATE of horrific mass shootings—at a Buffalo supermarket, a Texas elementary school, and a Tulsa hospital—it feels as if little has changed since the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012. In fact, things have gotten worse: mass shootings are more frequent and deadlier than ever.
It’s hard not to feel numb. When comparable nations have suffered deadly mass shootings—Australia, Canada, Germany, Britain, New Zealand, Switzerland—they responded with new laws curtailing firearm access, and rarely experienced another mass shooting. In America, we wait for decisive action that never comes, while mass shootings continue unabated.
Five years ago, we started researching the lives of mass shooters. To our genuine surprise, talking to mass shooters in prison and people who knew them, people who planned a shooting but never went through…