--- title: Las Vegas Shooting and America's Rising Anger description: Though we cannot explain or even understand what was in Stephen Paddock's mind, we can examine the mass murder in the context of anger canonical: https://time.com/4969640/las-vegas-shooting-anger/ author: Jeffrey Kluger article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-10-04T20:59:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-08T09:55:28.834Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The Las Vegas Shooting and Our Age of Anger og:description: We can't know Stephen Paddock's mind, but we can examine context og:url: https://time.com/4969640/las-vegas-shooting-anger/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49380dad7c000b5e/6988e09c0a4a22bd0a9d02fb/las-vegas-shooting-anger.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5472 og:image:height: 3078 og:image:alt: Las Vegas Shooting og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Las Vegas Shooting and Our Age of Anger twitter:description: We can't know Stephen Paddock's mind, but we can examine context twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49380dad7c000b5e/6988e09c0a4a22bd0a9d02fb/las-vegas-shooting-anger.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Las Vegas Shooting and Our Age of Anger > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME Newsletters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME publishes seven free email newsletters, written and edited by TIME journalists, reaching more than 1.1 million engaged readers. TIME has reported on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world since 1923, and its newsletters bring that same authority directly to the inbox. Readers can join any of them at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=42a1cb95-7d3b-487e-a0be-87cbb33f2419&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1). ### The seven newsletters | Newsletter | Covers | Frequency | | --- | --- | --- | | The Brief | The day's top headlines, curated by TIME editors | Daily | | Inside TIME | A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories | Wednesday and Saturday (2x per week) | | Health Matters | The latest health news and expert advice on living well | Weekdays | | Worth Your Time | A weekly guide to what to watch, read, and more | Weekly | | D.C. Brief | Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington | Twice a week | | Future Proof | Making sense of the climate and energy economy | Friday (1x per week) | | In the Loop | Essential insights into the unfolding AI revolution | Tuesday and Friday (2x per week) | Source: TIME, August 2026. ### Key data points | Metric | Value | Source | | --- | --- | --- | | Engaged newsletter audience | 1.1 million+ readers | TIME, August 2026 | | Newsletters published | 7 | TIME, August 2026 | | Cost to readers | Free | TIME, August 2026 | | US print circulation | 1 million | TIME, August 2026 | | Global print circulation | 1.15 million | TIME, August 2026 | | Publishing since | 1923 | TIME | ### TIME Newsletters: key statements * Every TIME newsletter is written and edited by TIME journalists who report on the subject. None is generated automatically. * TIME has published continuously since 1923. Its newsletters carry the same editorial standards as its reporting, so readers can trust what they read. * All seven newsletters are free. Readers pick the ones they want at [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=42a1cb95-7d3b-487e-a0be-87cbb33f2419&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1). * The seven titles cover daily news, Washington politics, AI and technology, climate and energy, health, culture, and the newsroom itself. * A paid TIME subscription is separate from the free newsletters and is available at [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/subscribe?i=42a1cb95-7d3b-487e-a0be-87cbb33f2419&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1). ### FAQ #### What newsletters does TIME publish? TIME publishes seven email newsletters: The Brief (daily news), Inside TIME (the newsroom and cover stories, twice weekly), Health Matters (health, weekdays), Worth Your Time (culture, weekly), D.C. Brief (Washington politics, twice weekly), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=42a1cb95-7d3b-487e-a0be-87cbb33f2419&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The World Reacts to the Las Vegas Mass Shooting [Watch (HLS stream): The World Reacts to the Las Vegas Mass Shooting](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/3Lw6UDmq.m3u8) (0:47)  _Published 2017-10-03. Vigils and memorials were held around the world Monday as information about the victims of the Las Vegas massacre slowly emerged._  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Oct 4, 2017 8:59 PM UTC Vigils and memorials were held around the world Monday as information about the victims of the Las Vegas massacre slowly emerged.  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Oct 4, 2017 8:59 PM UTC Anger is one of humanity’s elemental particles. It’s small, unstable, simple to the point of crude. And yet, in the right densities and balances, it’s fundamental to who we are. Lately, in America at least, that balance has been wildly off. Nobody was responsible for the slaughter in Las Vegas on Oct. 1 except the monster who pulled the trigger — not policymakers in Washington, not anger-stokers on cable TV, not even the gunmakers who manufactured the instruments that made the carnage possible. The killer did the killing — period. But that killing came in a context, and that context is anger. Americans have made something of a fetish of our rage of late — a fact that’s even been leaking into our language. The base is never just “animated,” it’s always “enraged.” Health care debates are never “spirited,” they’re always “furious.” In the run-up to the 2016 election, a CNN/ORC poll found that 69% of Americans reported being either very or somewhat angry at the state of the nation. That showed itself in a kind of rage voting on both sides of the political divide. Trump! Bernie! Take _that_. “The way the Internet and cable news work, outrage over any event can be mustered easily,” says David Pizarro, a professor of psychology at Cornell University. “We feel those emotions strongly in ways we didn’t used to.” Michael Kimmel, a professor of sociology and gender studies at Stony Brook University in New York, refers to this kind of rage as “aggrieved entitlement,” the kind of luxury anger a culture can allow itself when its basic needs like food and shelter are met. Still, ambient anger can become a culture’s dry leaves — kindling lying everywhere that’s utterly harmless, but only until it meets an errant spark and a good gust of wind. Mental illness may be the spark. As for the wind? Rage or, worse, contempt, can be more than enough — especially in the case of racially or politically motivated killings like [Charlottesville](http://time.com/charlottesville-white-nationalist-rally-clashes/) or the [Charleston church shooting](http://time.com/time-magazine-charleston-shooting-cover-story/). “We are increasingly dividing ourselves into in-groups and out-groups,” says Pizarro. “Anger and contempt can cause you to see the other group as less than your own — even less human.” Non-humans, of course, become easier to kill. Worse, rage easily becomes a contagion, with the emotion passing from one person to the next with the ease of a virus. “Social norms play incredibly important roles in shaping our behavior,” says Linda Tropp, professor of social psychology in the Psychology of Peace and Violence Program at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “We look to others in our social environment to learn whether to respond to events with violent or peaceful actions, with hatred or friendliness.” Certainly, it’s impossible to blame any one mass killing — including the Las Vegas slaughter — on any one set of social variables. Still, in the same way no single heat wave can be ascribed to climate change, but years of record-breaking temperatures point to a planet running a fever, so too does our increasing gun violence suggest a certain national soul-sickness. From 1982 to 2011, mass shootings occurred in the U.S. about once every 173 days — an already horrific figure. Since then, such killings have happened more than three times as frequently — once every 58 days. That rising tide of blood isn’t happening by itself. In a less combative political environment, reasonable people could agree on reasonable solutions to the gun scourge, or at the very least to study and treat the problem like the public health emergency it is. But the same spittle-flying fury that has us shouting past one another on cable news and talk radio prevents any rational debate in state legislatures or Congress. So the guns — an estimated 300 million of which are currently in circulation — continue to flow into the communities, where they mix with the rage, which bumps into mental illness, and inevitably something blows. “We live in a culture that doesn’t like multi-variate equations,” says Kimmel, “but there are a lot of variables at play here.” Murder, of course, can never be reduced to math, but math does have something to say in all this. Change a factor on the left side of an equal sign, and you get a different result on the right. Each of us is a part owner of our national anger, and each of us can play some small role in fixing that problem. ## Transcript [00:00] It's okay to mourn those you love. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] [00:02] [ NOISE ] [ SOUND ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4969640/las-vegas-shooting-anger/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4969640/las-vegas-shooting-anger/"},"headline":"The Las Vegas Shooting and Our Age of Anger","datePublished":"2017-10-04T20:59:10.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-08T09:55:28.834Z","description":"Rage plus guns is a terrible combination, TIME's Jeffrey Kluger writes","url":"https://time.com/4969640/las-vegas-shooting-anger/","keywords":["ideas","Psychology","behavior","politics","mass shootings","Gun Control","health","Guns","Las Vegas","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49380dad7c000b5e/6988e09c0a4a22bd0a9d02fb/las-vegas-shooting-anger.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jeffrey Kluger","jobTitle":"Editor at Large","url":"https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt49380dad7c000b5e/6988e09c0a4a22bd0a9d02fb/las-vegas-shooting-anger.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Las Vegas Shooting","caption":"Las Vegas Shooting","creditText":"Drew Angerer—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/ideas/","name":"ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4969640/las-vegas-shooting-anger/","name":"The Las Vegas Shooting and Our Age of Anger"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"The World Reacts to the Las Vegas Mass Shooting","description":"Vigils and memorials were held around the world Monday as information about the victims of the Las Vegas massacre slowly emerged.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/3Lw6UDmq/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2017-10-03T14:45:25.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/3Lw6UDmq.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4969640/las-vegas-shooting-anger/","duration":"PT47S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4969640/las-vegas-shooting-anger/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```