Violence: The Role Of Gun Violence In The Media

Gun related violence has long since been apart of American history dating all the way back to colonization, western cowboys of the 19th century all the up to today’s modern era. The revolver has long since been a staple of American portrayals in pop culture. On June 21, 1968 TIME magazine debuted its weekly issue with the cover dawning a cartoon hand and smoking revolver accompanied by brightly contrasting colors. The image comes weeks after Senator Robert Kennedy was assassinated in the lobby of a Los Angeles hotel. Nearly three months prior to that atrocity, Martin Luther King Jr was shot and killed standing on the balcony of a motel room in Memphis, Tennessee. That same year, American households were still gripping to the striking images

Around the world, guns are used in various things such as hunting, warfare, shooting ranges, and much more. There is one particular action that has increased drastically within the past decades. This is none other than mass shootings in the United States. Since the spark in mass shootings, people have discussed ways to prevent this from happening, but others do not want the laws to change. Although each argument has their benefits and liabilities, America must do something about the deaths and injuries of thousands of people. Changing the laws would have benefits such as decrease in deaths and injuries of others and reduce the societal costs, but argues against the Constitution.

Since people are mostly only able to participate in catastrophes such as this mass shooting at a distance, news media is the primary source of information, which therefore creates the audiences’ reality of the events that occur.(Wheeler 80) With this, the mass media has the control of what people are exposed to, and the choice to amplify awareness to what they choose as important. In an interview conducted with Sarah, an undergraduate student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, she recalled her exposure to the news of the shooting: “The only reports I had access to, was what I saw in the news”. When asked how she thinks the media had an effect on her perception of the shooting, she stated: ”Well I believe that since the only information I was able to get was from news sources, what I saw in the news is what I believed. So I really do think the media had a strong effect since I was exposed to mainly what they chose to present to me.” With this, media messages, such as the reporting on the Las Vegas shooting, exert a strong influence on audiences and the cultivation of people’s perception. The frequent exposure to these stories of mass shootings and the use of descriptors based on race are fed to the audience and become a common knowledge. Ultimately, the promotion of racial stereotypes through the disproportionate representation of perpetrators of mass shootings influences public opinion and perception.(Lankford) With the strong effect that media has on the people, it is

One strong point for gun owners is the shootings in schools against numerous victims. One shooting was in Pearl, Miss., and another in Edinboro, Pa. Each of those states is allowed open carry. In both of those shootings, the killer came to a halt because citizens had guns. If citizens didn’t have guns more killers could have continued to murder people because they would have had no way to protect themselves. These gun supporters will be the firsts to say that because those people had guns, those killings didn’t become mass murders.

In these last few years, the U.S. has been struggling with a massive amount of gun violence. From 2000 to 2013, there have been 160 cases of mass shootings in the United States, totaling 486 deaths and 557 wounded. And yet, despite these statistics, we still cannot pass even the most moderate bills, which would help reduce gun ownership in this country. This is because advocates of the Second Amendment, such as the NRA, stand between our nation and improved gun control legislation. Some of the NRA’s flimsy arguments for keeping the strict Second Amendment include controlling the number of guns owned cannot possibly reduce the number of shootings and people are the cause of mass shootings and not firearms.

In this world today, there is a big problem with mass shootings happening more often. People tend to blame guns more than they do the people doing the crime. Some even say the Second Amendment should be altered or abolished. Everyone has a right to express their opinion on things, but sometimes in serious situations like this we need to really understand what the problem is and not make things any worse than they already are. Yes, guns do have a big part in mass shootings, but they aren’t the only problem in the situation.

In the 2016 election, Trump claimed the media was biased towards his opponent, Hillary Clinton. When the media coverage of both candidates were observed, it is clear that they wanted Clinton wanted to win. Many people in the US follow the news and get all of their information there. However, most people do not trust mainstream media because they think the media is biased and trying to influence their views on many important topics in today’s society. In fact, 66% of the people in a survey believed that the media was twisting information related to global warming (Evans). If the news was more objective, more people would listen to the news because they would feel as if they got the correct information. Things such as elections would be more

In a one year, almost 20,000 Americans suffer from nonfatal gun injuries, and 34,000 more, including over 3,000 children and teenagers, are killed by gunfire. “Federal and state laws are now required that will take the existing stockpile of 200 million guns out of the hands of ordinary citizens and prohibit the further sale and possession of handguns other than for people who have a legitimate, professional reason to carry them” (page 1). Certainly, people will kill each other its just human nature, but common sense shows that only with the aid of a firearm can they do it so efficiently and effectivly and in such large numbers. Also the other talk about many other things on how basically, guns don’t kill people, people kill people tone, and that grabbed my attention. The last paragraph in this journal was one of the best summaries I have heard on gun rights it stated.  “It's time to put an end to the arguments about the meaning of the Second Amendment and come to terms with the social and political realities of the twenty-first century. Guns kill; it's what they're meant to do. And no spin by those stalwarts who insist on our right to carry guns can change the fact that their unregulated use has unleashed a murderous plague that kills and injures far too many victims every year. Yes, people will continue to kill each other even if we ban guns” (pg

With each mass shooting, defined as four or more victims having been killed indiscriminately, antagonism grows between both sides of the gun control argument. 40% of Americas population own guns that’s roughly 130,000,000 people who own guns in America, that is a lot of people that own guns. Also every year there are 36,000 deaths by guns only including the ones they have found out about and 533,000 in the

1 Running Head: GUN VIOLENCE Gun Violence ​People tend to believe that mentally ill people are more likely than regular people to cause gun violence. This is simply not true. People who are mentally ill are usually not more violent than regular people. Studies have been completed which prove that mentally ill people are not more prone to violence than regular people. However, when a shooting occurs where there is someone who is mentally ill, the media will blame the fact that the person is mentally ill for the shooting.

Throughout the day on October 9, 2017, The New York Times website covered a variety of stories, featuring numerous articles concerning the Las Vegas tragedy and gun violence in the United States, as well as pieces highlighting President Trump’s declination of the Iran Nuclear Agreement and cutback of employer birth control coverage. The outlet also published stories regarding Harvey Weinstein’s sexual harassment allegations and Steve Mnuchin’s $800,000 travel expenses. Across that Friday, the digitally-initiated HuffPost focused its attention on political issues, from Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump and Russia’s collusion to disputes between Doug Jones and Roy Moore. Similar to The New York Times, HuffPost featured stories on the

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.

Henry Giroux is a Global TV Network Chair Professorship at McMaster University in the English and Cultural Studies Department; and a scholar at Ryerson University in Canada. With his numerous successes and as a renowned scholar, he has also written many books throughout his life, including America’s Education Deficit and The War on Youth, Disposable futures, America at War with Itself, and many more. In Giroux article, “Gun Culture and the American Nightmare of Violence,” he starts off describing how mass shootings have become a routine in American culture today and that this type of violence not only shifts people’s perspective on the world but is now a way for entertainment. As Giroux takes a serious look at society today, he reveals that

The media has helped to greatly increase the awareness of gun laws within the general public, both on sides of support and opposition; It has raised many conversations as to what is best for our state and what is in our country’s best interest. Although the media has raised awareness, it has done little to increase our knowledge on this hot topic. There are countless amounts of memes floating around on various social media platforms that feature clever sayings and popular images in which people will laugh, share and believe that they agree with what they

In today’s world, there is an endless amount of information available to people everywhere around the globe. Mass media is definitely shaping our world, whether it is in a positive way or a negative way. Television and the radio waves provide us with hours of entertainment. The emergence of the Internet allows us to access thousands of pages of information within the reach our very own fingertips. But with the convenience of all this information comes along a certain level of responsibility. As a society, we Americans must decide what is appropriate information and entertainment for the masses to access and enjoy. But does today’s society give too much leeway in what it thinks as “appropriate?” Does increased