Over the last decade school shootings have repeatedly filled the news. Everyone has been exposed to the violence of school shootings in some way. News about the violence covers social media and television for days after the attack. Each time a shooting occurs it occupies the news channels for about a week, people offer condolences on social media, but no impactful gun policy changes ever happen. Why is it that although we see the violence caused by guns, policy changes do not occur? In the wake of the most reason shoot at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 people died this question continues to be relevant, although it is not a new problem. Since 1999, 150,000 students have experienced a shooting at their school (Cox, Washington Post, 2018). Repeated exposure to violence causes desensitization which is turn prohibits change. This essay will examine when desensitization occurs and who it affects by looking at studies in which people who have experienced violence answered various questions about their …show more content…
2014). Desensitization occurs not only in children and not only over a long period of time. It does not take much time or even much violence for people to become desensitized to the amount of violence they experience (Mullin and Linz, 1995). In this particular study parents were exposed to clips of violence and asked to rate how appropriate they thought that clip would be for their children to watch. It was found that the more adults watched violent clips, the less critical they became of the violence. In the case of school shootings in America, the violence has been horrific, but it has also been frequent, which causes desensitization to the violence. When the parents become desensitized to violence, it encourages this same desensitization in children, creating a cycle of
While a fair number of Kimmel’s observations about this new demographic are depressingly familiar, he warns that the dangers created by disgruntled guys will rise the longer we tolerate, brush off and deny their bad behavior. “The stakes are higher, the violence more extreme, the weapons more lethal,” Kimmel writes. School shootings, a relatively new phenomenon, are increasing. This is evident jumping back to earlier in the semester when we discussed Lisa Wade’s, “The ‘Benevolent Sexism’ Behind Dylan Roof’s Racism,” article where kids like Dylan Roof, Adam Lanza, and many more used violence to fuel to fuel their hate, and commit heinous acts of terror. These are just some resent acts of violence that Kimmel is conveying to us in
One source found that “anti-depressant prescriptions for young adults in the vicinity of school shootings tend to rise after they occur” (McKnight et al. 2). The rise of anti-depressant prescriptions further proves that school shootings create mental health issues. Mcknight illustrates the effect such a tragic event has on a community. While anti-depressants provide relief to these sufferers, they also have harmful side effects that may interfere with their physical health, such as fatigue, nausea, and fatigue (Mayo Clinic Staff 1). In addition to increased prescription rates, school shootings affect children in the community more than violence in other locations because children know the victims, and school shootings break children's trust in school safety (Rossin-Slater 2).
School-related shootings, particularly those that are dramatic in nature, evoke strong public outcry, and justifiably so. Following an apparent spate of incidents occurring between 1997 and 2001, it seemed as if the USA was on the brink of a moral panic concerning delinquency to young youth. Since then, "Columbine has become a keyword for a complex set of emotions surrounding youth, risk, fear, and delinquency in 21st century America" (Muschert 2007). One alarmist (Stein 2000) went so far as to label Columbine as a metaphor for a contemporary crisis of youth culture.
The book “Rampage The Social Roots Of School Shootings” written by Newman et al, offers many different views and theories behind the issues of Rampage school shootings. In this paper I will give the reader an in depth overview and evaluation of the aforementioned book. Offering researched based reasons to why these school shootings actually happen. They explore the communities of Heath and Westside, the grounds of two horrific acts of rampage shootings by Michael Carnell, Andrew Golden and Mitchell Johnson. They explain various angles of there research such as identifying an issue, how signals given by children can be misinterpreted, the effects of social capital and how mental factors play a role in the acts of the shooters.
The 26 Lives that Changed America On December 14th, 2012 the United States of America broadcasted the third deadliest massacre by one man alone of 26 lives. (Wikipedia) Bullets rang through the halls of Sandy Hook Elementary School that morning, murdering 20 children and 6 adults. Each child had a name, a family, and a future they never got to fulfil. During the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre, parents were terrified of the possibility their kid could be next.
Although the federal government has been slow to implement reforms, it is important to note that many states have taken action on their own. For example, Colorado has passed laws that prohibit individuals with a history of domestic violence from purchasing firearms, a measure that was previously dismissed by the federal government. However, the fact that every single citizen in the United States is not equally protected from firearms seems demoralizing. Not to mention, the U.S. has the highest rate of school shootings compared to any other country in the entire world. No other country has had as many school shootings ever compared to the U.S.
For thousands of shooting crimes happening in the U.S., many of them have the titles started with “elementary school” or “women”. Most recently, a six-year-old boy was injured and died during a shooting at a South Carolina elementary school, and the Sandy Hook Elementary school. These killings lead to the losing of lives and the sorrow for those families. Those primary students do not know how to use a gun, or they do not hold guns to school. So they cannot benefit from the self-defense function from guns, the only thing they get is the life threat
School Shootings: How We All Miss the Point... The aftermath of a school shooting is tragic, depressing, and causes hatred for the lives lost and the person who took them. Everyone, especially the media, tries to interpret why the shooter killed their victims, or why they felt the need to end others’ lives and their own. How We All Miss the Point on School Shootings, by Mark Manson, explains what and why these mass shootings happen. He starts by using examples of shootings and the murderer’s past.
Many schools in today’s society suffer from shootings at some point while children are attending school. Shootings in schools are not a new occurrence, and America has dealt with multiple shootings in public schools in which the lives of many children and teachers have been undeservingly taken (Elliott 528). Because of school shootings, this leaves our children in danger with no way to protect themselves. Gun violence in schools is an evident problem, and there are several ways to reduce the number of incidents, such as mental health screening for owners of guns, interconnectedness of communities, and more school funding.
It does not take long for a debate to arise after a school shooting to argue which side is to blame. However, the debate has done nothing but made it worse for the trend of school shootings as it typically results in nothing. With two opposing sides, they barely consider any reasonable solutions since they are more focused on worrying if the gun or the shooter is to blame for the death of hundreds of people. In an article written by the Gallups’ Lida Saad concluded, “According to two recent Gallup polls, from 2011 and 2013, more people believe that mass shootings result from a failure of the mental-health system than from easy access to guns.” Gun advocates are in favor of this reasoning because they believe that the system is failing to identify mental health patients in regards to gun violence.
Symbolic interactionism illuminates fundamental elements that attribute to school shootings. According to Jeanne Ballantine and Joan Spade in their book, Schools and Society, A Sociological Approach to Education, “Symbols are the concepts or ideas that we use to frame our interactions” (2015:19). Symbolically, a sense of self and hierarchical place is determined by social interactions (Ballantine and Spade 2015). Students find themselves determining how they see and feel about themselves by how their cohorts, parents, siblings, teachers, and others interact with them. Sadly, the young perpetrators of school shootings have derived their sense of self from their social experiences of isolation, bullied harassment, and low hierarchical status, producing skewed and biased self-perceptions.
Gun Control Hypocrisy America has recently seenseveral shooting and indiscriminate firing incidents in schools, malls, and religious place. Do the U.S. people need gun control laws? Should everyone own a gun for self-defense? There are many questions that rise about gun control, but most of them do not have answers.
Informative Speech Going Out with a Bang General Purpose: To inform. Specific purpose: To inform my audience about the causes of school shootings in America. Central Idea: The main causes for school shootings are easy access to guns, mental instability and trauma. INTRODUCTION I. (Attention Getter)
The Vicious Cycle School Shootings Create As school shootings are on the rise, so are students’ fear all across the nation. “According to Everytown for Gun Safety, there have been at least 149 school shootings since 2013, 52 this year alone” (Board). This shows that school shootings have become more prevalent over the years. Violent people who feel depressed, attacked, or alone, may become school shooters. While some feel these may be the causes, others think that accessibility to guns is the number one factor in these attacks.
There is an estimation that about half of the households in the United States owns at least one gun. As such many people can have access to guns, including children and other family members. Many school based attacks involve young people carrying guns owned by their parents and going on a rage through schools and other places. Similarly, the ease of acquiring guns has led to vulnerable deaths of people across the country. Moreover, this leads obsessed people to escape their frustrations on minorities by murdering and threatening them.