ABSTRACT
Mass shootings interrupt the collective narratives that build and maintain shared identities of the targeted communities, as in the above quote, where a youth worker describes how the shooting challenged the image and the shared identity of a peaceful, middle-class town. This chapter analyzes the ways in which community members perceived violence, death, and the perpetrators of mass shootings, and explores the dark side of strengthened community solidarity. It also examines how the idea of evil sometimes helps to form an interpretation of what happened, and to incorporate the experience of mass violence into the collective identity of the targeted communities—a process also described in cultural trauma theory. In the case of the Jokela shooting, the first large-scale school shooting in Finland, both national and local narratives were disrupted. In Jokela and Kauhajoki, most people were not able to identify reasons that would have helped them make sense of the incidents. Community members described the deaths as exceptional and shocking.
