Exposure To Gun Violence

While a handful of articles note the roles that guns, poverty, families, and the organization of schools may play in youth violence in general, when reporters mention research to explain the shooters’ behavior, the vast majority of studies cited concern media effects, suggesting that video games are a central

More than 30,000 people are killed by firearms each year in the US. Most of which are caused by handguns. Homicide is the second leading cause of death among 15-24 year-olds. Most reasons for gun violence are caused by video game influence, and issues of mental illnesses. Video games are one of the biggest causes of gun violence because of the majority of in game violence that occurs. Today’s children are more prone to violence due to video games and the violent movies, but then that leads back to the way they were raised. In today’s world, both parents work, there is no family time to teach their children the main differences between right and wrong. When most people don’t know who they are harming, it makes it a lot easier for them to cause harm.

In order to solve the problem of violence in schools, we must first find out who the problem is. Being that not every teenager is prone to participate in such violent acts as what happened at Columbine, there must be specific environment imposed on a particular biology to turn a teenager into an Eric Harris or a Dylan Klebold. These are not normal, healthy teenagers, and they don’t just become killers overnight. They become killers because they are already deeply disturbed individuals who can be sent over the edge by all sorts of innocuous influences. Violent teens often have specific characteristics that put them at high risk for committing these crimes. These high risked students may display some of the following traits. First,

     Ever since the terrible tragedy at Columbine High School, there has been a numerous list of recent school shootings in America. Youth violence is a major issue in today’s society. Many people dread what causes adolescents to be so violent, committing horrible crimes.     

Teenage gun violence is caused by individuals between the ages of 13- 19. This type of violence is at an all-time high. It is becoming a serious problem, especially with such a rapid growth of violent technology displaying more troubled teens leading to more teen deaths involving the

Despite existing gun laws already enacted, homicide rates from around the globe are augmenting yearly, resulting in an increase of innocent deaths. Several individuals have expressed that “When the homicide rate is disaggregated by age, it becomes clear that the increase in homicide after 1985 was driven almost entirely by a significant increase in homicides committed by juveniles (those under age 18) and youth (those between the ages of 18 and 24)” (Blumstein). With numerous guns still out in the open and

A trend analysis of juvenile homicide offenses shows that since the mid 1970's, the number of homicides in which no firearm was involved has remained fairly constant. However, homicides by juveniles involving a firearm have increased nearly threefold. In addition, during this same period, the number of juvenile arrests for weapons violations increased 117 percent. When guns are the weapon of choice, juvenile violence becomes deadly.

As we all know gun violence has become an increasingly conflicted issue in the world and specifically in the United States. Gun violence is the leading cause of premature death in the United States as it kills almost 30,000 people and causes about 60,000 injuries annually. But guns are not the main cause of this problem. The problem is America's culture of violence. We need to understand that guns are not what’s killing people, people are what’s killing people. Although guns may enable killers to commit an act of violence more easily and effectively, stricter laws on guns would not necessarily dismantle the problem. Currently, guns are just a symptom to the real problem, which is our violent human nature. For decades, we have been dousing

The film Mind of a Rampage Killer, which first aired in the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, highlights questions at the forefront of all of our minds: what compels a human-being to commit the most inhuman of crimes? As a society, we see the gruesome images of violence every day, but do we understand how children can grow up to become ruthless killers? Furthermore, how can we prevent another event, such as the Newtown massacre, from occurring again? In this documentary, produced and directed by Miles O’Brien, NOVA investigates the roots of violence, including neurological, environmental and psychological factors.

The formative experiences that define a child's home life will have a lasting impact on the individual as he or she enters the later stages of childhood, adolescence and adulthood. The degree to which one's family life is loving, nurturing, supportive and attentive is a substantial determinant in emotional, social and intellectual development. Accordingly, a home which is abusive, violent, negative and neglectful is more than likely to have deleterious effects for the child both while and well after maintaining residence there. This turns us toward the focus of the present study, which is the impact levied by domestic violence on children.

It is without a doubt that there has been an increase in violent crimes in schools throughout recent years. School shootings continue to become more and more common, especially in North America. Safety concerns for any and all students and staff in schools are at all all time high due to the high number of fatal and non-fatal occurring incidences. Since 2013 to the present, it is estimated that the United States has seen approximately 205 school shootings. Weekly, that is a shocking one shooting on average. Many of these shootings have resulted in the injuries and deaths of multiple of students and staff members. (Everytown Research, 2017) Evidently, school shootings are tragic events that affect so many more people than just the victims. However, these events are also interesting to look at from the psychological and sociological point of views. Through much research, it can be concluded that school shootings are a complex problem that are caused by a mix of improper brain development and societal and media influences which motivate school shooters to emerge. Psychological factors may include struggling with mental illnesses and/or abuse that leads to damaged brain development. Additionally, being bullied and/or the role of the media are examples of sociological factors.

Domestic violence also greatly impacts the family structure and the relationships between the members. Domestic violence threatens both the relationship between the child and their mother and the child and their father. Children who are exposed to domestic violence do not have an emotionally available parent to foster their development and have a 30-60% higher risk for being abused by the perpetrator (NCADV, 2007); when the father is the perpetrator of the violence, he often knows little about his children, their interests, and progress in school (Crosson-Tower, 2009, p. 84). The mother’s parenting style may also be damaged from domestic violence; the perpetrator may not allow the mother to take care of her children properly or soothe them when they are upset, which can cause the children to believe their mother does not care for them. When a mother is constantly traumatized by domestic violence, it can be more difficult for her to be present and attentive in her children’s lives due to depression, anxiety, and lack of sleep (Centre for children and families in the justice system, 2009). Domestic violence has an impact on the ability for a family to function. The perpetrator may sow divisions between the members of the family by turning them against each other, or favoring one child over the others. There may also be role reversals in families who experience domestic violence; parentification of the children and infantilizing of the mother may

It is common for parents and their children to have disagreements and to have arguments but sometimes these disagreements can turn into abuse. Children usually use violence to try to “control or bully them” (Parenting and Child Health, n.d.) This violence usually occurs when the child “frightens, threatens or physically hurts them. It can involve using abusive language, pushing, shoving, kicking, throwing things, or threatening with knives or other weapons” ((Parenting and Child Heathen’s.) Children may abuse their parents due to the normalization of that parent getting abused by the other parent within their household. The child may use the parent that abusing the other parent as a model for the way they should act towards their parent as well and justify their actions simply as something that they observed in their household. The violence that children commit against their parents affects that subsystem because it leaves it broken. There is a strain within the parent and child relationship that forms a direct result of constant conflict and abuse between the child and parent. Sometimes, in child-child relationships, an older sibling may become “more aggressive” with their younger sibling because of the abuse that they have witnessed and been exposed to. (Fantuzzo, Mohr, 1999) The children can become socialized by the parents to believe that

Many children ruminate or think their parents all the time. It can cause stress that can lead to anxiety, depression, substance abuse, delinquent behavior and teen pregnancy by the girls. Sometimes, the children even make suicide attempts. It has been noted by Clinicians and Therapists that the children caught in the middle of the parents’ hatred during separation or divorce proceedings have attention and concentration problems, academic problems, anger problems and sleep disorders. These are the reasons why lots of children nowadays have violent behaviours because of the separation of their parents (Shaffran, 2015).

Behavior on Initiation of Gun Carrying: A Longitudinal Test of Three Models of Youth Gun Carrying, Richard Spano, Alex Pridemore, and John belland studies the link of youths of different ages in different areas of poverty. They concluded that youth that have witnessed violence and saw dead bodies are more likely to be influenced by violence. Youths who witness violence are influence to join gangs and performs violence. while the other youths learn to equip themselves with tools for protection for themselves and their families. Youth who lives in poverty does not always see a died body, saw violence, or carry weapons. Drugs, violence, and gun thrive in poverty atmosphere.