Finding Your Inner Gun: A Jungian Perspective on Mass Shootings and American Gun Culture

Mass shootings have become a recurrent tragedy in the United States. This paper examines these incidents from a Jungian perspective. While much of the discourse around mass shootings surrounds finger-pointing and the gun control debate, making meaningful action and legislation untenable, my aim is to look deeper, reflecting on what may be amiss in both the individual and collective psyche. The symbolic meaning of the gun specific to American history and culture is amplified, and the role the gun continues to play as a cultural and political symbol. The author posits that mass shootings point to an archetypal possession, the constellation of both a cultural and personal gun complex, where shadow aspects of ourselves, including power, rage, and aggression, become enacted with destructive and fatal consequences. The trend of mass shootings is investigated from a mythopoetic standpoint, using the myth Ares to further explore this phenomenon. The author also examines the necessity of owning our shadow side, namely our power, rage, and aggression, both personally and collectively. In this work comes the importance of connecting with the positive creative potential of the inner gun.