by Caleb Rosado

About the author: Caleb Rosado is a sociology professor at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California.

“I’m the big man. I got the gun. Why does she have this attitude"”

This was the way a 16-year-old explained killing a mother of three. While Christine Schweiger’s 10-year-old daughter watched in horror, two teenagers ordered her to her knees outside a Popeye’s Famous Fried Chicken restaurant in Milwaukee and demanded her money. When she said she didn’t have any, one of the youths blew away most of her head with a 12-gauge, sawed-off shotgun.

Many years ago, Mao Zedong said that “power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Mao’s maxim is true today in America. For many people, especially young...