School Shootings And Mass Media

So many tragic and deadly mass shootings have happened all around the world. The United States of America is not any different. With a population equivalent to 4.27% of the total world population, the USA represents the home to the biggest number of mass shootings that occurred in history worldwide. In the process of distinguishing what to consider as a mass shooting, it is essential to first be familiar with the term “mass murder”. The U.S. Department of Justice, more precisely the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has defined it as the unlawful killing of four or more victims by the offender(s) at single or more locations which are in close geographical proximity. Regarding this, the “mass shooting” would represent a mass murder with the use of firearms. Out of the total number of mass murders in the United States, a great amount of the shootings happened in different schools all over the country. That number goes over 1,350 shooting incidents in schools in approximately 40 years. 

The incidents include every case where a gun is fired, regardless of whether there were victims or not. By this time, residents of all states are no strangers to cases such as these, thus have witnessed a fair share of incidents throughout media since even before the 20th century. For instance, in 1891 a man fired upon a crowd of students in Parson Hall School in Mississippi and that is possibly one of the earliest reported school mass shooting in the country. At that time without notice one of the biggest and most dangerous chains regarding school violence had started. As this was something unusual at that time, due to big media coverage, many thought of it as a new way to distribute aggression and violence, thereupon only a month after the first-ever incident of this type the second mass shooting took place. Many research papers, books, and experts claim mental illness is a major contributing factor to mass shootings, yet most cases happened due to escalation of aggression against different opinions, races, or religions. These cases happen to be severed since today they are little or completely unknown and all because of the media’s huge distribution of more constant and deadlier shootings from the 20th and 21st century. Collectively, news has the ability to influence the perceptions of school shootings, particularly as the coverage relates to things such as fear of crime or even copycat or contagion effects. Thus, it is important to examine school mass shootings from the very beginning, since there might be more than a few 'coincidences' that could be noticed in these incidents. Unfortunately, as a consequence of numerous school shootings that occurred in the past several decades, the memory of crimes from the 19th century and how often they have actually happened is suppressed. 

Today's media are more focused on the most extreme cases which provide relevant and closely connected information to people’s interests. This means that since most people have never experienced school shootings directly, their only way to gather information about a certain incident is via media. On this account, news, television, radio, newspapers, etc. evidently have immense control over distributed data. According to CNN's list and Ranker's list of the deadliest mass shootings in modern US history, the first, biggest incidents started happening in 1966 when in Texas 16 people were killed and 30 wounded at the University of Texas. One especially memorable case, which residents of Colorado and the whole country as well will never forget is a mass shooting that happened in 1999 in Columbine High School where two perpetrators killed 13 people before suicide. This case has been covered in over 500 articles by most popular newspapers and then the excessive media coverage caused an increasing trend in shootings from 2000 to 2015. It is inevitable to question the media’s role in all of this and evaluate the effects of their coverage, while also because they might be encouraging the increasing trend to an enormous extent. With a close look at the media’s role in providing information and how people’s perceptions are created based on those data, it is possible to state the question to what extent does the media coverage of school mass shootings propel further violence? Therefore, to examine whether media is a serious cause of forthcoming school mass murders or just a small factor of influence. 

Gun Control Laws as factors of influence Many statistics have proven that among developed countries America is a large outlier in regards to incidents where firearms are used. This is because the US has the weakest gun laws in the developed world. Different types of firearms are accessible and one can effortlessly come into possession of a gun and carry out an act of violence. Gun control has always been one of the blaming factors when it comes to mass shootings, however, the biggest obstacle to banning these weapons is people themselves. That is because more than half of the population has firearm ownership and all due to ‘safety reasons. According to The Washington Post – ABC News poll from 2018 made after the incident at Douglas High School in Florida where 17 people were killed; more than half, 58%, of adults agreed that stricter gun control laws could have prevented the shooting. Stricter gun control laws require cutting down the number of firearms in the country, although it may represent an issue since U.S. citizens own approximately 40% of all guns in the world. At last, even if gun control laws were to remove all the weapons from residents, it is to a large extent insuperable. 1.2. Mental Illnesses as factors of influence In previously stated ABC News Poll, based on the case from Parkland, Florida, more than three-quarters, 77%, thought a better mental health screening and treatment could have prevented the shooting.