Opinions

The negative impact the media has on the United States’ gun problem

After the recent tragedy that occurred at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, where a gunman opened fire and killed ten people, including himself, and injured nine others, gun control is once again in the news.

This seems to occur frequently. The same debates are heard over and over again. There are always the same cries and attempts for the government to do something about an obvious issue of violence, while we see the pro-gun crowd adamantly defend their stance on guns not being the main issue.

There is no magical solution that will solve this issue. That is the sad reality of this situation. Now, in regard to this issue, please know that I am not a “gun guy.” I do not even own a gun, and although I am for the most in-depth background checks to purchase a gun, guns are not the main issue here.

It’s people. It’s our media. It’s the influence of psychiatric drugs. It’s a number of things that will require a look in the mirror and a collective effort to fix.

The majority of mass shootings in our country is a more “recent” occurrence. Before the 1980s, mass shootings were very rare. In fact, of the 12 most deadly shootings in the United States, at least half of them happened after 2007. According to Harvard research, the rate of mass shootings has tripled since 2011.

Why is that? Guns are nothing new. There was even a time when our schools had shooting ranges and taught gun safety to kids decades ago. Why wasn’t this an issue during that era? What changed?

A number of things, but our media and overexposure and choice in entertainment have gone off the rails in terms of what is acceptable and now the “social norm.” Our movies, shows and video games are more violent than ever.

Is that to say that anyone who plays video games or watches violent movies is going to go on a shooting spree? No. However, those types of things have significant influence on the minds of unstable human beings. It may be inconclusive to try and establish a link to the killings and video games but several recent mass shooters were known to be obsessed with video games and on psychiatric drugs.

The next issue is our media. The 24-hour news cycle covers tragedies and the latest events on an endless loop ad nauseam. They put the evil murderer’s name and headshot on television and before the day ends, they have already broadcast their entire background and life story. It gives them the limelight.

This encourages unstable people that are unhappy with their life to make a name for themselves and gain notoriety. The actions of the media were apparently not lost on the Umpqua Community College killer.

The killer wrote in a blog that he noticed the intense coverage of the murderer responsible for shooting a television reporter and cameraman on air in Virginia.

“I have noticed that so many people like [Vester Flanagan] are alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are. A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone,” he said. “His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems like the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight.”

Due to the media coverage, there are always copycats that immediately follow. As someone in high school during the Columbine shootings, I saw the mass hysteria and copycat attempts that followed.

According to a Mother Jones investigation, the nation’s worst high school shooting that occurred at Columbine in 1999 has inspired at least 74 plots or attacks across 30 states. Of the 74 plots, 53 of them were thwarted while 21 attacks were carried out.

Andre Simons, the leader of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Virginia, studies the motives for shootings and assists local police in detecting the early signs that may indicate a suspect is plotting a mass shooting. “The copycat phenomenon is real,” Simons said.

After the movie theater shooting during The Dark Knight Rises in 2012, there were two plots that were thwarted. One instance was in Missouri, where a killer had planned to open fire on a crowd attending a midnight premiere of Twilight before his mother called the police to stop it. The other instance was at a showing of The Hobbit before an off-duty cop shot and killed the suspect.

We also need to realize that further gun control laws will not deter criminals from obtaining firearms any more than it deters criminals from obtaining drugs. In reality, it will only restrict the law-abiding citizens who need means to protect their homes, and there aren’t any studies showing the amount of crimes that did not occur because someone had a gun to defend for protection.

Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the country and it hasn’t stopped anything. There are shootings on a daily basis. Over Labor Day weekend, eight people were killed and 46 others wounded in shootings across Chicago.

According to the Chicago Tribune, someone in Chicago has been shot every 2.84 hours this year for a total of 2,360 shootings. Their gun laws have not stopped gun violence at all. Criminals don’t care about laws, which is why they’re criminals. Schools are a gun-free zone and these killers purposely seek out places where no one will prevent their evil.

It’s a broken system for sure. On one hand, we want to keep guns out of the mentally unstable and criminals hands but we want law-abiding citizens to be able to defend themselves. We will not be able to fix the gun issue overnight but we can start focusing on the negative influences that we fill our minds with that these people to seek a gun in the first place.

Without a person pulling the trigger, a gun is just an inanimate object.

One Comment

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    I agree. This is a human issue not a gun issue.

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