America’s Private Revenge Theater: Why Millions of Americans Have Imagined Shooting Someone

Monday May 18, 2026.

America now contains millions of people carrying around tiny private revenge films in their heads.

Not plans, necessarily.
Not manifestos.
Often just flashes.

A face.
A humiliation.
A fantasy of force arriving where helplessness used to be.

Researchers recently found that 7.3% of adults in the United States have seriously thought about shooting another person at some point in their lives.

That translates to roughly 19.4 million people. More than 8 million reported having these thoughts within the last year alone. 

Violent intrusive thoughts themselves are not rare, and most people who experience them are not dangerous. The researchers explicitly note that most people never act on these fantasies. 

But the scale still matters.

Because when millions of people privately rehearse fantasies of retaliation, something important is happening psychologically and culturally.

Something larger than firearms. Larger than politics. Larger, even, than anger itself.

The comforting instinct is to imagine these fantasies belong exclusively to extremists, sociopaths, or men assembling tactical flashlights in underground bunkers while listening to podcasts about fluoride. But the study becomes psychologically unsettling precisely because it does not support that fantasy.

Political ideology differences were not statistically significant. Gun ownership alone did not predict the thoughts. The targets ranged from enemies and strangers to family members, romantic partners, police officers, and government officials. 

Which means this phenomenon does not belong neatly to one tribe.

That ruins everybody’s preferred explanation.

Because Americans increasingly regulate anxiety by imagining danger exists entirely inside “those people over there.” The political left imagines militia compounds. The political right imagines urban collapse. Everyone imagines themselves as psychologically reasonable while privately doomscrolling themselves into emotional tetanus.

Meanwhile, millions of people appear to be quietly entertaining fantasies of catastrophic retaliation.

This is not really a gun story.

It is a humiliation story.

America Has Built a Humiliation Machine

Modern America does not merely produce anger.

It produces chronic status injury.

That distinction matters enormously.

Anger says:
“I dislike what happened.”

Humiliation says:
“I have been reduced.”

Humiliation lingers.
Humiliation rehearses.
Humiliation fantasizes.

Many folks now experience emotional life primarily as passive spectators to other people’s victories.

They lie awake at 11:43 p.m. Watching strangers renovate kitchens, optimize testosterone, become spiritually awakened, recover from heartbreak attractively, launch companies, age backward, and achieve suspiciously luminous skin under perfect lighting while quietly feeling their own lives receding from them.

This is not psychologically neutral.

You can now encounter social comparison before your feet touch the floor in the morning.

You can lose an argument publicly before breakfast.
You can watch strangers become wealthier than you during lunch.
You can discover your former classmate owns a vineyard in Portugal while you are standing in CVS comparing generic antihistamines.

Researchers studying shame and aggression have long observed links between humiliation and retaliatory fantasy.

Social pain activates many of the same neurological systems involved in physical pain, as social neuroscientist Naomi Eisenberger demonstrated in her work on rejection and emotional pain.

But the deeper issue may be this:

American culture increasingly offers people stimulation without containment.

We flood people with outrage, comparison, rejection, symbolic combat, economic anxiety, and algorithmically amplified humiliation while simultaneously dismantling many of the institutions that historically absorbed emotional distress before it escalated.

Sports leagues.
Churches.
Civic clubs.
Union halls.
Neighborhood bars.
Extended families.
Local rituals.
Communal belonging.

Even mediocre bowling leagues once performed a kind of emotional shock absorption for lonely men who otherwise might have spent six consecutive hours arguing online with strangers named LibertyWolfActual.

Now many people process grievance alone.

And solitary grievance changes shape.

The Rehearsal Proble

one of the most dangerous transitions is not anger itself but performative anger.

This is the moment a person stops merely feeling resentment and begins organizing their identity around it.

They replay conversations.
Curate evidence.
Privately prosecute the other person.
Imagine confrontations.
Refine retaliatory fantasies.

Eventually the nervous system learns the grievance so thoroughly that the body begins preparing for conflict automatically.

High-conflict systems become self-protective.

This is true in marriages.
It is true in families.
It is true in nations.

Researchers in relationship science, including John Gottman, have demonstrated how chronic contempt reshapes perception itself.

Once negative sentiment override takes hold, even neutral behavior begins feeling hostile.

The same phenomenon increasingly appears culturally.

Many Americans no longer merely disagree with one another.
They anticipate betrayal from one another.

That distinction matters.

Because once people begin expecting humiliation everywhere, revenge fantasies become psychologically easier to generate.

Not because most people are secretly homicidal.

But because emotionally isolated human beings eventually start searching for fantasies of restored agency.

Violent Fantasy Is Often About Powerlessness

This is the part public discourse handles terribly.

Many revenge fantasies are not fundamentally fantasies of death.

They are fantasies of reversal.

The imagined violence symbolically resolves:

• humiliation.

• helplessness.

• invisibility.

• betrayal.

• rejection.

• status collapse.

• or chronic emotional impotence.

In couples therapy, people rarely say:
“I want power.”

They usually say:
“I want them to finally understand what this felt like.”

Sometimes the nervous system translates that longing into catastrophic imagery.

Especially when people are emotionally isolated, chronically dysregulated, intoxicated, sleep deprived, socially disconnected, or psychologically rehearsing grievance without interruption.

Fantasy becomes emotional compensation.

The fantasy of the “monster” is emotionally comforting because it allows the culture to avoid examining the conditions manufacturing grievance at scale.

And frankly, modern America increasingly resembles a country running on ambient humiliation and exhausted nervous systems.

Americans now speak about emotional regulation the way medieval peasants once spoke about weather: as a mysterious external force descending from the heavens instead of something shaped by sleep, loneliness, alcohol, economics, attention, despair, trauma, isolation, and chronic digital overstimulation.

One reason grievance escalates so quickly online is that many adults now possess the emotional self-soothing capacities of overtired toddlers with broadband access.

The Most Important Finding in the Study

The most psychologically important detail in the study may not be the fantasies themselves.

It may be the disclosures.

About 1.5% of respondents reported telling another person about their thoughts of shooting someone. 

That detail contains an entire hidden emotional universe.

Because people do not usually disclose dark fantasies unless part of them unconsciously wants interruption.

Insight is not interruption.

But relationship often is.

Underneath many destructive fantasies lies a desperate wish:

“Please notice how psychologically overwhelmed I have become.”

Again, this does not excuse violence.
But it explains something essential about escalation.

Healthy relationships contain aggression.
Healthy families contain aggression.
Healthy communities contain aggression.

Containment does not mean repression.

It means emotional experiences can be metabolized before they become behavioral catastrophe.

But containment requires connection.

And many people increasingly lack sustained forms of human connection capable of interrupting escalating grievance narratives before they harden into identity.

Why This Matters for Couples and Families

Most people assume studies like this belong exclusively to criminologists or law enforcement.

I think they also belong to marriage and family therapists.

Because violent cognition often begins relationally long before it becomes criminal.

Emotional neglect matters.
Attachment injury matters.
Chronic contempt matters.
Status humiliation matters.
Social fragmentation matters.
Loneliness matters.

Families remain one of the primary systems where emotional regulation is either strengthened or weakened over time.

People who feel emotionally witnessed are generally less psychologically combustible.

Not because love magically erases aggression.
But because connection interrupts escalation.

The currency of intimacy is attention.

And many people are now profoundly attention-starved.

Not merely sexually.
Not merely romantically.

Existentially.

FAQ

Does having a violent thought mean someone is dangerous?

No.

The human mind is considerably less wholesome than most corporate wellness seminars suggest. Intrusive aggressive thoughts are surprisingly common, especially during periods of humiliation, betrayal, rage, exhaustion, fear, or chronic stress.

The difference between ordinary intrusive thoughts and genuine danger usually involves rehearsal, fixation, planning, emotional gratification, behavioral preparation, and access to weapons.

Were gun owners more likely to report these fantasies?

No.

The study found similar rates between gun owners and non-gun owners. 

However, some respondents reported considering purchasing firearms specifically to carry out violence. 

Why are humiliation and status injury so psychologically important?

Because human beings are profoundly social creatures.

Research consistently shows that shame, rejection, exclusion, and humiliation can activate intense psychological distress. For some individuals—particularly those already emotionally dysregulated—humiliation can become psychologically combustible.

Violence is often less about sadism than about desperate attempts to reverse helplessness.

What does this have to do with relationships?

Quite a lot.

Manydestructive relational patterns involve escalating grievance rehearsal:

• replaying old injuries.

• anticipating betrayal.

• emotionally prosecuting a partner.

• and privately constructing revenge narratives.

Some relationships are no longer suffering from misunderstanding.

They are suffering from repetition.

Are modern digital environments making this worse?

Probably.

Social media environments intensify comparison, outrage, humiliation exposure, symbolic conflict, and attentional fragmentation.

Many souls now consume emotionally activating content continuously without adequate recovery, reflection, or genuine connection.

The nervous system was not designed for perpetual psychological stimulation.

What should someone do if violent fantasies are becoming repetitive or emotionally gratifying?

They should seek help immediately.

Especially if the fantasies involve:

• planning.

• rehearsal.

• weapon acquisition.

• emotional satisfaction.

• hopelessness.

• revenge fixation.

• or escalating isolation.

Interruption matters.
Connection matters.
Treatment matters.

Final Thoughts

The most revealing thing about this study may not be that millions of Americans have imagined violence.

It may be that millions of Americans increasingly seem emotionally overwhelmed enough to require fantasy itself as compensation for helplessness.

A culture that continuously humiliates people should not be surprised when some eventually begin fantasizing about force as the only remaining form of dignity.

Some relationships are no longer suffering from misunderstanding.

They are suffering from repetition.

Increasingly, so is the culture.

Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.

REFERENCES:

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). American Psychiatric Publishing.

Baumeister, R. F., Smart, L., & Boden, J. M. (1996). Relation of threatened egotism to violence and aggression: The dark side of high self-esteem. Psychological Review, 103(1), 5–33. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.103.1.5

Eisenberger, N. I. (2012). The neural bases of social pain: Evidence for shared representations with physical pain. Psychosomatic Medicine, 74(2), 126–135. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0b013e3182464dd1

Gilligan, J. (2003). Shame, guilt, and violence. Social Research, 70(4), 1149–1180.

Gottman, J. M. (1999). The marriage clinic: A scientifically based marital therapy. W. W. Norton & Company.

Hicks, B. M., & Ilgen, M. A. (2026). Prevalence of thoughts of shooting others among US adults. JAMA Network Open.

Scheff, T. J., & Retzinger, S. M. (1991). Emotions and violence: Shame and rage in destructive conflicts. Lexington Books.

Tangney, J. P., Stuewig, J., & Martinez, A. G. (2014). Two faces of shame: The roles of shame and guilt in predicting recidivism. Psychological Science, 25(3), 799–805. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613508790