ABSTRACT
Much of the criminological and psychological literature on homicidal behaviour deals with school shootings as one very particular sub-type of rampage shootings. This is mainly because also those latter events have led to intense societal debates on the national approach towards guns. Rampage shootings are generally conceived of as acts that threaten public security; they automatically generate a sense of vulnerability among the overall population and thereby create incentives for 'crisis exploitation'. This chapter considers three objectives. First, it clarifies the term rampage shooting and conceptualizes this class of events as empirical instances of potential focusing events. Second, the chapter discusses the way politicization is used as an analytical concept and distinguishes its meaning from the concept of (governmental) agenda setting. The chapter explains the varying extents to which rampage shootings become subject to efforts of politicization. Finally it introduces the concept of policy change and spells out the attributes that give the concept meaning.
