Talking About Mental Health After Mass Shootings Summary

The article Shootings by Adam Gopnik depicts the correlation between mass murders and media to be a social gathering in which citizens from all around the world bandwagon onto debates to form “crusades”. Adam emphasises that media sources only shine light upon topics of gun violence and mass shootings in a overly exaggerated tone, rather than finding an appropriate solution. Adam attepmted to propose that media only brodcrasts pinpointed topics that grabs public attention to make headlines by focusing the characteristics of the Virgina Tech’s shooter’s mental illness. According to Adam (2007) “... much of the conversation was devoted to musing on the treatment of mental

The debate over gun control is not a new argument, neither is the existence of mental illness. There have been those who support and those who oppose gun control for many years. What has recently re-ignited the debate is an increase in mass shootings over the past few decades; one in particular is the Newtown, Connecticut, massacre. Incidents, such as this, fuel anger and fear, driving many to question the need for firearms in modern society, while others cite these incidents as a reason for remaining armed. The purpose of gun control is to limit the amount of violence in today’s

After a mass shooting event, the public’s focus often shifts to gun control, as well as the state of our mental health system. “Research suggests that mass shootings can increase mental health stigma, reinforce negative stereotypes that people with mental illness are dangerous and violent,

The proposal to the problem focus on mass shootings specifically, not gun violence in general, although the potential solutions to mass shootings would do much to prevent gun violence as a whole. Mass shootings represent a mere 2% of gun-related deaths, yet the sheer horror, shock, and scale of carnage tend to capture the public’s attention so much more so than the typical shooting homicide or suicide, which are seemingly ubiquitous in news reports these days. The big issue with solving the problem of mass shootings is the variety of factors involved with the shooters’ motivations to kill.

In the article, We stop the next Aurora not with gun control but with better mental health by David Dow a tense message is delivered. Dow argues that the two most common policy positions on mass shootings are lacking in thought. One policy is that there should be stricter gun laws and the other is that more people should be able to carry and conceal firearms. Dow states that both of these policies should be discarded. Dow believes that the guns are not the problem, but a person with severe mental illness is the problem .The core message behind the passage is that the mental illness inside of a person is to blame for these tragedies, not the guns in the hand

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

Mental Health is the root to numerous problems in America, how your brain deals with certain situations determines how sick or healthy our minds are. Based on a Washington Post-ABC News Poll of 808 adults, 57% agreed that the mass shootings were due to mental health issues whereas 28% said that it was due to inadequate gun control laws (SHEN). Almost 30% additional people thought that it was a mental health issue instead of a gun control issue. Since a larger portion of adults believe that mental health is the root to mass shootings a mental health test need to be complete on anyone who wants to carry or purchase a weapon.

Due to the politics underlying both, gun control and mental-health legislation, this recent shift came with a lack of simplicity. Being careful not to ignite inaccurate stigmas about mental illnesses; advocacy groups and congressional Democrats remained reluctant not to connect escalating gun violence with people suffering from mental health disorders as the leading cause of these recent shootings. Deep disagreements on Capitol Hill, along with great demands from family members of individuals diagnosed with severe mental illness would not come cheap. Also, it would only become another obstacle standing in the way of accomplishing the goal of bringing change to the mental health system (Sun,

“Looking at mass shooting in America, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold stands out in their background and motives. Unlike Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, or James Holmes at a movie theater in Colorado, or Jared Loughner outside an Arizona shopping center, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold did not have discernable psychiatric diagnoses” (Sancier,2014).

In the article, “Change your gun laws, America” by Fareed Zakaria, he gives his opinion on why the gun laws in America should be changed. He uses many examples to represent his own opinion and how gun laws should be changed in order to prevent more deaths. When looking at America’s high gun homicide rates compared to the small amount of mentally disturbed people, Zakaria believes that the large amount of guns possessed throughout America is the actual reason for these high rates, “We don’t have 50 times as many mentally disturbed people as Germany does- but we do have many more guns.” Zakaria argues that with this many guns being possessed, we as citizens just sit around waiting for another mass shooting to happen. Zakaria supports his argument by using many resources and statistical information. He uses June 2008, the day the Supreme court made a decision written by Justice Antonin Scalia, to represent how “an individual[s] right to gun ownership has made common-sense regulation of guns much harder.” He also uses valid statistics, such as the website shootingtracker.com, to support his argument and represent how 150,000 Americans have been killed since 9/11 due to guns. Homicide rates from different countries are also used to represent how the United States has higher levels of violence rather than other dangerous countries. However, while making this argument, Zakaria also states many invalid claims and makes many assumptions.

In his essay “We need to stop the next Aurora Not with Gun Control but with Better Mental Health Treatment” David R. Dow explains how gun control is not the problem in mass shootings. Instead mental health is the real problem. I also believe what Dow expresses in his essay. If we help those whom we ignore and pretend aren’t there then these violent crimes will start to disappear. He wrote the essay to help prevent more shootings, by informing the public on what the real problem is.

Nine students were killed at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. A man opened fire in a church, in Charleston, South Carolina, killing nine people, including the pastor. Twenty-seven were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. Twelve were killed in the Washington Navy Yard. This is only a few examples from a very long list. The grim truth is that mass shootings are becoming the new normal. Every few months, another mass shooting occurs and the public goes through the same routine of mourning, honoring, and ultimately debating. What causes these manic episodes of multiple, indiscriminate gun deaths? Some push for more gun control, others argue that the U.S. mental health system is a failure. Controversy aside,

A current most spoken issue among the public media is gun violence or mass shooting however the crime is not as many as it was twenty years ago. The term mass shooting does not have an official set of definition yet, but the term indicates crime which is killing as many people as possible in a short time frame. The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines it as “actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area” (Sam Brock, Rachel Witte, and Joe Rojas). A mass shooting can begin due to several reasons: it could be background history, media, despair, or something else. Nico Lang, the author of America’s White Masculinity Complex and The Myth of The “Senseless” Mass Shooting says, mass shooting can also be related to mental “functions like the specter of ‘mental illness.’” A number of mass shooters have serious, often undiagnosed mental problems. Are the mass media addressing the basic issue clearly? Of course, the media address the issue more than the violence expects to be addressed, but it is not overt enough. ….. By examining a variety of news media coverage on the subject of mass shooting, this essay concludes that when choosing stories to cover, the news media must take the general audience into consideration. Ultimately, what is at stake here is the media exaggerate the crime and report it disproportionally, and the distortion of reality can have variety of effects on the viewer or the general audience.

In my essay, I argue that the media, in particular the news, has a bigger influence in mass shootings then other stimuli like; access to guns, violent video games, and mental illness. By exploring the news’ role in mass shootings we can begin to discuss the changes that can be made in the way they broadcast. While the news believes they are just doing their duty and reporting the news while also honoring the victims, there really just honoring the perpetrator. With the news portraying the culprit as a hero, relieving what and how many weapons he used, and the amount of people he or she killed they help encourage future perpetrators to “beat the score”.

There is an assumption that if you understand the minds of serial killers, or persons who commit mass shootings, that it may help prevent mass shootings. “Mass shootings are not on the rise, but have held steady over three decades, randomly clustering in time to trick our brains into finding a pattern of increase where none actually exists” (Shermer 3). Mass shootings happen at varying times without rhyme or reason. Some think that a psychological disorder or some genetic defect could be the reason people commit these crimes. Although we cannot prevent mass shootings, we can educate on how mental health issues can be a precursor to such a tragedy, and how better laws can create a safer environment.