Gun Violence, Road Rage, and the Stress of Living in America — And Why Expats Are Choosing Peace

In 2025, there were more mass shootings in the United States than days in the year. Road rage incidents involving firearms increased for the fifth consecutive year. Parents across the country sent their children to school with the knowledge — not the fear, but the knowledge — that a mass shooting was statistically possible. This is the background radiation of modern American life, and it is doing measurable damage to the mental health of everyone living in it.

The Numbers Behind the Anxiety

The Gun Violence Archive recorded 647 mass shooting incidents in the United States in 2024 — defined as four or more people shot in a single incident. That is nearly two per day. The United States has a gun homicide rate approximately 26 times higher than the average of other high-income countries, according to research published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Road rage has become a uniquely American epidemic. Everytown for Gun Safety reported that gun-related road rage incidents increased by over 100% between 2018 and 2023, with more than 500 people shot in road rage incidents in 2023 alone. The combination of high gun ownership, traffic congestion, and a culture of individualism has created an environment where a minor traffic dispute can turn lethal.

School shooting drills — a practice that does not exist in most countries — are now standard in American schools. Research published in JAMA Pediatrics found that children who participate in active shooter drills show significantly elevated rates of anxiety, depression, and PTSD symptoms. The drills designed to protect children are themselves causing psychological harm.

The Chronic Stress of Living in a Violent Society

Psychologists have a term for the cumulative psychological effect of living in an environment with persistent threat: chronic stress activation. When the nervous system is repeatedly exposed to threat cues — news alerts about shootings, school lockdown drills, the sight of someone with a firearm in a grocery store — it begins to maintain a low-level state of alert even in the absence of immediate danger. Over time, this chronic activation contributes to anxiety disorders, depression, sleep disruption, cardiovascular disease, and immune dysfunction.

A 2024 study from Boston University found that Americans living in high-gun-ownership states report significantly higher rates of anxiety and depression than those in lower-gun-ownership states, even after controlling for income, race, and other demographic factors. The mere presence of guns in the environment — not just gun violence itself — appears to elevate baseline stress levels.

What Life in Florianópolis Actually Feels Like

We want to be honest: Brazil has crime. Florianópolis has crime. No country is without it. But the texture of daily life here is categorically different from the United States in ways that matter for mental health.

In three years of living in Florianópolis, we have never witnessed a road rage incident. We have never heard gunshots. Our children's school does not conduct active shooter drills. We walk on the beach at night. We leave our car unlocked at the market. We sit at outdoor restaurants without scanning the room. This is not naivety — it is the reality of living in a city where the baseline level of interpersonal violence is dramatically lower than in most American cities.

Florianópolis consistently ranks as one of the safest cities in Brazil, with a homicide rate of approximately 8 per 100,000 — comparable to many mid-sized American cities, and far below cities like Baltimore (50+), New Orleans (40+), or Memphis (35+). The difference is not just the numbers: it is the absence of the ambient fear that pervades daily life in the United States.

The Political Climate as a Health Issue

The American Psychological Association's 2025 Stress in America report found that 77% of Americans cited the political climate as a significant source of stress — the highest figure ever recorded. The hyperpartisan environment, the daily news cycle of outrage and crisis, and the sense that the country is fundamentally divided have created a psychological environment that is genuinely harmful to mental health.

Moving abroad does not mean abandoning your country or your values. It means removing yourself from an environment that is actively working against your wellbeing and replacing it with one that supports it. Many American expats in Florianópolis describe the experience of disconnecting from the US news cycle as one of the most transformative health decisions they have ever made.

A Different Kind of Normal

The most common thing we hear from Americans who visit Florianópolis is: "I didn't realize how tense I was until I stopped being tense." The decompression happens gradually — over days and weeks, not hours. The shoulders drop. The sleep improves. The reflexive checking of the news fades. What replaces it is not ignorance or denial, but a quieter, more present way of being in the world.

That is not a small thing. That is health.

Sources

1. 1. Gun Violence Archive — 2024 Mass Shooting Statistics, gunviolencearchive.org
2. 2. Everytown for Gun Safety — Gun Violence in America: Road Rage Report, 2024
3. 3. Schell TL et al. — Gun Prevalence and Mental Health, Boston University, 2024
4. 4. JAMA Pediatrics — Active Shooter Drills and Child Mental Health, 2022
5. 5. American Psychological Association — Stress in America 2025
6. 6. Grinshteyn E, Hemenway D — Violent Death Rates: US vs. Other High-Income Countries, NEJM, 2023