Understanding mass shooters is something that most Americans would rather avoid. They're evil, destructive, and scary individuals whom most people would rather never meet, let alone understand. However, many would argue that to defeat an enemy you must understand them, and that is exactly what Billie Joe Armstrong hoped to do in his new song "Bang Band," detailing the spiral of insane narcissistic behavior that one requires to commit such atrocities.
Up until now, no average person has attempted to get into the head of a mass shooter in any way. We see articles in journals or newspapers about how they're all mentally disturbed and that it is their own fault every single day. What Armstrong does in this song is take away the cause for the behavior away from the individual, and instead he places it on all of us. The song is a sad memoir of someone who wants to be famous, wants to be in control, and wants all the things that society tells us to want, and all of that together should tell the world a lot about that society's morals.
As a media focused society, America has placed too much emphasis on our movie, music, and political stars. This kind of emphasis tells the younger generations that those kind of people are what we should aspire to be like, famous and desirable. The narrator of the song says "shoot me up to entertain", an exemplification of the idea that entertainment is key to our society, that it is more important that living one's life. Why should celebrities have so much sway in society? They are normal people who do their jobs, not some god made corporeal that controls everyone's life. No one places such importance on even the politicians who dictate what direction individual countries, and to a degree the world, takes for the future. This societal narcissism won't help anyone but those who profit from it most: the celebrities that society worships.
America's youth have never faced true adversity. They've had their economic issues, but they haven't been forced to fight in some war. They haven't seen thousands of people killed in a blazing explosion. America's youth only have a duty to their "followers" on whatever social media they choose to waste away over. "I got my photobomb, I got my Vietnam," is a complicated reference to this 
photo, which depicts Vietnamese children running from an american napalm strike, a literal "photobomb," and also a statement of America's youth. Vietnam was known for being an unpopular war for many reasons, but for many it was the draft that sparked their hatred. Young Americans were being shipped off, losing their childhood for something that wasn't their problem. The narrator saying he got his Vietnam is a statement about this lack of adversity millennials face, and the consequent lack of perspective that has been reflected onto their society.
The same issue of perspective causes many millennials to feel that they are entitled. They feel that they deserve happiness, that they deserve attention, and that they deserve to be valued without the necessary work that goes into all of these things. Armstrong comments on this through his narrator saying "Give me death or give me head," a parody of the famous "give me liberty or give me death" that so many have come to associate with fighting for what one believes in. The original speaker of the line, Patrick Henry, was saying that as a human being he was entitled to liberty and it was worth dying for that liberty. The narrator is saying that he is entitled to sex, love, and attention by women and that it was worth dying for to him. This idea of entitlement is something that many older generations have an issue with in today's youth, and maybe they have a right to have an issue with it. The fact that someone could shoot up a sorority simply because they desired sex, as someone did in the Isla Vista killings back in 2014, is a gross testament to the state of youthful entitlement
Many may be appalled that someone would write a song from the perspective from a mass murderer, but maybe that is exactly what this country needs. America needs to stop reacting to its issues and start addressing them. The blame needs to stop being placed on parents, or bad teachers, or bad politicians and start being placed on each and every citizen. Everyone has a duty to each other in this world, and if we do not start working together, then this country is already lost.
