by G. C. Smith (Author)

After the Gunfire: Moral Injury in the Wake of a Mass Shooting explores the emotional, spiritual, and moral aftermath that follows acts of public violence. Drawing from pastoral care, disaster response, and years of accompanying people through catastrophe, G. C. Smith examines how mass shootings wound not only bodies and communities but also trust, meaning, faith, and the human conscience itself. The book focuses on survivors, families, responders, clergy, healthcare workers, educators, and ordinary community members forced to navigate grief, helplessness, anger, fear, and unanswered questions after unimaginable violence. Rather than offering simplistic explanations or political slogans, the book explores the deeper moral and spiritual injuries created when human beings are exposed to horror, loss, and the collapse of safety. Through reflection, narrative, and compassionate theological insight, After the Gunfire addresses trauma, lament, emotional numbing, survivor guilt, public grief, and the struggle to remain human after catastrophe. It is ultimately a book about accompaniment--how communities, caregivers, and wounded people continue living, grieving, and searching for meaning after the sound of gunfire fades.

Author Biography

G. C. Smith is a retired pastor and disaster spiritual care provider with the American Red Cross. He writes about moral injury, caregiving, trauma, disaster response, and faith after catastrophe, and is the author of multiple works connected to The Moral Injury Project with Wipf and Stock Publishers.