This study, based on quantitative and qualitative data gathered over a twelve-year period, takes its title from the two predominant styles of gang violence: -drive-bys, - which have replaced -rumbles- as the primary form of gang violence; and -gang-bangs---a generic term for other gang violence that includes assaults, knifings, and beatings.

The author attempts to understand the situations in which a young man would drive up to another human being and, without further ado, blow his head off. By examining hundreds of such situations, and employing both structural and...