More than 60% of adults aged 18 to 29 worry that a mass shooting will impact their lives in some way. About 17% worry a lot. But when it comes to sentiments about gun control, the age group dubbed the "massacre generation" is deeply divided, new University of Colorado Boulder research shows.
The study, published in the journal Social Science Quarterly , found that while young adults overall modestly favor gun control, their viewpoints differ wildly depending on their gender and political leanings: Among young Republicans, young conservatives and young men, for instance, the more they fear mass violence, the more they oppose firearm restrictions.
The findings call into question some previous assumptions that as this generation — raised in an era of unprecedented mass violence—gains political power, stricter gun legislation will follow, the authors said.
"This is a generation of people who live with significant fear and anxiety over mass violence," said senior author Jillian Turanovic, associate professor of sociology. "But we found that those shared fears do not unite them in attitudes on gun policy. In fact, they polarize them."
The 'massacre generation'
In 2022, sociologists coined the phrase 'massacre generation' to describe young people growing up in a post-Columbine, post 9/11-era in which mass shootings dominate news coverage and social media, and lockdown drills are the norm.
As voters, they are poised to be extremely influential.
"Young adults today represent the most powerful potential voting bloc in the future of American policy making, so it is very important to understand how they feel about policy issues," said Turanovic, pointing to research estimating that by 2032, Millennials and Generation Z will comprise almost half of the electorate.
While mass shootings are relatively rare — making up only about 1% of all gun deaths each year—they have dominated discourse around policy making for the 'massacre generation.'
After a gunman killed 17 people at Parkland High School Shooting in Florida in 2018, young survivors launched the gun-control organization March for our Lives. In contrast, in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, in which 20 children and six adults died, gun rights advocates embraced the slogan "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."
"In the wake of nearly every high-profile mass shooting incident, there is a predictable flurry of opposing discourse by gun control and gun rights activists," she said.
National polls by Pew and Gallup have suggested that the 18- to 29-year-old set is more liberal in general and more favorable toward gun restrictions than older generations.
Turanovic and co-authors at Clemson University and Florida State University set out to dig deeper, looking specifically at how fear of mass violence influences sentiments about firearms among different groups.
The team surveyed a racially representative national sample of nearly 1,700 emerging adults and asked them to rank, on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 3 (a lot), how much in their everyday lives they fear that:
- You or someone you love will be a victim of a mass shooting.
- A mass shooting will happen to you or someone you love at a public event or gathering with large crowds.
- A mass shotting will happen to you or someone you love at a shopping mall, store, school, bar or a night club.
Overall, 44% of the sample scored in the range of "moderate fear" and an additional 17% scored in the "high fear" range.
When asked about viewpoints on gun control, the responses were strikingly varied.
While 58% of respondents said that owning a gun does not make you safer, 42% said that it does; 32% said they believe that guns should be permitted on college campuses; 32% indicated that a permit should not be required to carry a gun in public; and 42% said gun control laws are unconstitutional.
Overall, those who feared mass violence more tended to have modestly higher support for gun control. But this pattern did not hold true for Republicans, conservatives and men.
For them, the opposite was true: The more they feared mass shootings, the more they viewed expanded access to guns as a solution.
"This shows that emerging adults today are very divided in their gun control sentiment, and those divisions are most pronounced when fear of mass shootings runs high," she said.
More mental health support
At a minimum, Turanovic said she hopes the data in her study on fear itself will serve as a wake-up call to policymakers, nudging them to boost mental health support for the 'massacre generation.'
For those interested in gun policy, regardless of whether they want controls tightened or loosened, the message is clear, she said: Tomorrow's voters are not all of the same mindset.
"Generational change alone will not resolve America's gun policy debates," she said.
