Contagion In Mass Shootings

The psychological approach is made up of many theories. The social learning theory, the social control theory, and the social identity theory. They all apply to The Columbine Shooting. According to Ronald L. Akers and Robert L. Burgess’s Social learning theory differential association is learned criminal behavior. Criminal behavior is often learned from interacting with certain social groups in person or via the internet. Criminal behavior is easily learned by individuals being introduced to techniques of committing the crime and specific direction of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes. According to with today’s technology on the rise school shootings can be understood by societal concern of the increase of violent video games

The media constantly covers school shootings and in return, school shootings gain followers who become admirers of the offenders. A network of school shootings do in fact exist and a majority of these followers are dedicated to the Columbine shooters. The Columbine shooters were the first of school shooters to distribute and broadcast information online. Since then, many school shooters have used social media sites, including YouTube, to upload images and/or videos prior to going out and shooting individuals in schools. School shooting fans on YouTube have created a small-world network in which they use the Columbine shootings as a uniting factor of their network, write short positive statements on school shootings, and partake in long discussions about school shootings. These small-world networks for school shooting fans are easy to find but hard to control or eliminate. Due to this, the existence of these networks increases a possibility of support and justification for potential offenders and provides potential offenders with ideas and plans for future

One of the many misuses of firearms are the mass shootings that seems to becoming a normal tragedy in the United States schools. Mass shootings that occur usually have a motive or some kind of emotional tie to why these types of murderous actions took place. Phillip Cook and Kristin Goss explains emotional ties of the killers and what drives them to murder:

Research in school shootings have been administered in many categories, including sociology, psychology, and etc. past studies, and direct later studies in school shootings, offers a sociology stand point for understanding the differences of school shooting incidents, including rampage shootings, mass murders shootings, and examining the mass media dynamic of school shootings; as well as presenting a combination of causes said in the research, including those on the individual, community, and social levels. Suggestions for studies in the future in school shootings are still yet to be explored.

“Shooting massacres” in school settings, a new phenomenon within the past 50 years, are extremely rare events. Over 23 years, 1990-2012, 215 fatal school shooting incidents resulted in 363 deaths, equivalent to 0.12% of national firearm homicides during that time period …… Among these, just three shooting rampages – Columbine High School, Virginia Tech University, and Sandy Hook Elementary School – accounted for 72 (53.3%) of these 135 deaths. The frequency of random/ rampage shooting incidents in schools has remained within the narrow range of 0 to 3 episodes per year.” (Shultz, et al., 2013, p. 84)

Mass shootings have become an even larger problem, they have become more frequent, and the increased amount of shootings illustrates one of society 's biggest flaws: no value for human life. According to Mother Jones, and the facts that they obtained from Harvard, it is believed that in 1982, about 172 days separated one mass shooting from another, but since 2011, that has changed. Now, it is common for these incidents to take place once every 64 days (Rate of Mass Shootings Has Tripled Since 2011 Harvard Research Shows). From these numbers it is evident that the mass shootings have become more common, at an unbelievable rate. The number of days between shootings that occur now are

School shootings seemed like a new phenomenon, but they occurred for the majority of American history. The first school shooting occurred On July 26, 1764, when a Lenape Indian shot and killed nine children and the school master of the Greencastle, Pennsylvania school (Galvin): as noted in Appendix A. Since 1764, the number of school shootings rose exponentially. In the 1990’s,

Almost twenty years ago, on April 20th, 1999 just seemed like any other regular day of that time. Everyone went about their regular routine; parents going to work, children going to school, young adults going to colleges. But two high school seniors of Columbine High had no intentions of going about their regular days. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered their school with mind made of never leaving that school again alive but not before committing the most heinous and bloody massacre ever committed in the United States history. There has been bombing where the death toll was significantly higher than Columbine shooting. But what made this tragedy so terrifying was this was not any terrorist or radicalized person trying to avenge authorities; these were two teenagers killing their fellow classmates and teachers. Something that none thinks about, it was like a parent’s worst nightmare coming true. Eric and Dylan killed a total of thirteen people, students and teachers combined, and seriously injuring over twenty others . This shooting sent shockwaves across the country, but most evidently sent criminal justice community scrambling looking for answers into why these two boys did what they did? What happened that made them mass murderers? To explore these questions criminologists started applying crime theories to the both their present life and their upbringing.

Has the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill led to the increase of mass shootings experienced in the US? According to Lankford, several reports suggest that up to 60% of offenders of mass shootings in the US since 1970, exhibited symptoms including depression, delusions, and acute paranoia prior to the commission of their crimes. Further statistics have shown that since 1982, there have been at least 71 public mass shooting across the country; with 34 of these mass shooting having occurred since 2006. A recent analysis of the database by researchers at Harvard University corroborated by a recent FBI study concluded that mass shootings have been on the rise. More than half of the cases involve school or workplace shootings, 12 and 20

When we hear the words mass shooting, most of us immediately pause and begin to think the worst. We are filled with sorrow that soon turns to anger as details of the event emerge. A portion of the population immediately begins to call for more gun regulation and the battle is staged again. This scenario plays out in the media and in the legislative halls around the country and seems to occur on a much too frequent basis. Has the frequency of mass shootings actually increased? Or has technology allowed the media to convey stories within minutes of their occurrence giving the appearance of increasing crime? Many people believe the term mass shooting and inner city are almost synonymous

Before this attack on the small area of Jefferson County,Colorado school shootings on this scale were rare. In fact there were only two school shootings in the years of 1990 to 1999 in which 5 people were killed while Columbine took the lives of 13 people. With Columbine being the first of its kind there is no surprise that it influenced other acts of violence. In the 19 years since Columbine there has been a total of 53 attacks or threats of violence against

Most of the recent shootings seem to be contagious as their shooters’ plans and motives are almost all quite alike. These shooters have set a “stereotypical shooter” profile. They are typically male, white, and around the age of 20. Of all the mass shootings, only one was done by a woman (Mass Shootings in the U.S.). They are usually quite smart, part of a middle class family, and are normally quiet, lonely, and introverted. They are almost always socially awkward and have few-no friends. Yet, no one expects them to kill others as they are quiet. These shooters keep everything to themselves which may be one of the reasons why they are full of hatred. Often, they consider suicide, yet they refuse to talk to any sort of counselor. They are almost always constantly on a computer, frequently playing violent video games. Their shooting plan is almost always pre-meditated far in advance. They plan to make their shooting “great” and to ‘gain fame’ for their mass shooting. After the shooting, most commonly, they kill themselves.

Newman begins her book by telling the stories of two different rampage shootings, at Heath High School and Westside Middle School. Once she establishes the shooters and the subjects of her study, Newman lays out her thesis and explains that her research shows that many factors contribute

The study's author, Sherry Towers, the research professor at Arizona State University's Simon A. Levin Mathematical, Computational and Modeling Sciences Center, presented a statement or account that makes contagion clear with its hallmark being in observing patterns of a substantial number of events that are clustered in time, as opposed to transpiring at an unknown time.

The author in this article talks about past studies that have been conducted over killings. The author explains whether or not contagion impacts the likely hood of leading to more killings. The mass shooting that involved lots of killings in 2012 caused more focus on the dynamics of why they were occurring so often. Studies from research being done show on average in the United States there is a mass shooting every 2 weeks. In a self-excitation contagion model stated in the article it shows events that are going to increase in the future. In the article the author shows a correlation with those that conduct a mass murder are likely to commit suicide. The author makes his work credible by informing the reader where he attended in this case Arizona