Columbine, Aurora, Newtown. Each of these names has the potential to silence a room. Santa Monica, Austin, San Ysidro. While this set of names may conjure numerous visions of place, few are as charged as those in the former list. What do the former names have in common that those in latter list do not share? What links certain mass atrocities to certain places? How do others seem to avoid this generalization? American identity is fundamentally tied to the mass atrocities perpetrated by its gun wielding citizens. While scholars have widely debated both the significance and history of these ties - notoriously placing blame on the Second Amendment often shirking the arguments suggesting that gun laws accompanied it - few have explored the broader history of these occurrences and the way in which they impact place.
With increased media attention in recent years, the rhetoric of mass shootings has tended to favor more contemporary instances of violence. Often these short histories, begin with the 1984 McDonald’s Massacre in San Ysidro in which James Huberty shot and killed twenty-one people; few lead with the case of Charles Whitman, a former U.S. Marine who killed fourteen people at University of Texas at Austin in 1961. Even fewer begin with the story of Charles Unruh, who’s “Walk of Death” the Smithsonian names “the First Mass Murder in American History.” Using the FBI’s updated definition of “mass killings” as “three or more killed in a single incident” (the Smithsonian used the 2005 definition which requires four or more people to be killed), the history of mass shooting in America stretches back much further. The first documented mass shooting, perpetrated for reasons unrelated to race, occurred in Winfield, Kansas in 1903. In this paper, I will examine all facets of this shooting in order to determine the way in which it shaped and was shaped by its location.
With increased media attention in recent years, the rhetoric of mass shootings has tended to favor more contemporary instances of violence. Often these short histories, begin with the 1984 McDonald’s Massacre in San Ysidro in which James Huberty shot and killed twenty-one people; few lead with the case of Charles Whitman, a former U.S. Marine who killed fourteen people at University of Texas at Austin in 1961. Even fewer begin with the story of Charles Unruh, who’s “Walk of Death” the Smithsonian names “the First Mass Murder in American History.” Using the FBI’s updated definition of “mass killings” as “three or more killed in a single incident” (the Smithsonian used the 2005 definition which requires four or more people to be killed), the history of mass shooting in America stretches back much further. The first documented mass shooting, perpetrated for reasons unrelated to race, occurred in Winfield, Kansas in 1903. In this paper, I will examine all facets of this shooting in order to determine the way in which it shaped and was shaped by its location.
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