Infrequently asked questions about mass shootings

Sam Smith - Whenever there are mass shootings, the media, politicians and the public  talk about them as if the only issue involved is gun control. Here are some questions that rarely get asked:

Why has the murder rate gone down but mass shootings gone up?

Between 2000 and 2003 there were 129 people killed or wound in mass shootings. Between 2010 and 2013 there were 444.

Meanwhile, Science 20 reported earlier this year: 

There is a paradox when it comes to guns in America. In states like California, gun ownership has doubled in the last 15 years while murder rates dropped substantially in that time. Today, almost one in three US adults owns at least one gun, and owners are more likely to be white married men over the age of 55, hardly a high crime demographic.

Instead of being for crime, most guns are used for suicide - and even then fewer people commit suicide with guns in the US than do by hanging in Japan. Though Switzerland had always scoffed at the notion that guns cause crime - gun ownership is even higher there - similar results in more than one country dispel the myth that more legal guns lead to more crime or more murders.

What is the role of the media’s obsession with violence in encouraging mass shootings?

Matt Taibai, Rolling Stone:  What we call right-wing and liberal media in this country are really just two different strategies of the same kind of nihilistic lizard-brain sensationalism. The ideal CNN story is a baby down a well, while the ideal Fox story is probably a baby thrown down a well by a Muslim terrorist or an ACORN activist. Both companies offer the same service, it's just that the Fox version is a little kinkier.

Parents TV: In 1972 the Surgeon General's office conducted an overview of existing studies on television violence and concluded that it was "a contributing factor to increases in violent crime and antisocial behavior." … Over the years, there have been literally hundreds of studies examining the connection between media violence and violence in real-life, the results of which were summarized in a joint statement signed by representatives from six of the nation's top public health organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and the American Medical Association: "Well over 1000 studies… point overwhelmingly to a causal connection between media violence and aggressive behavior in some children.  The conclusion of the public health community, based on over 30 years of research, is that viewing entertainment violence can lead to increases in aggressive attitudes, values and behavior, particularly in children." 

At a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on neurobiological research and the impact of media on children, Dr. Michael Rich, Director of the Center on Media and Children's Health at the Children's Hospital of Boston testified that the correlation between violent media and aggressive behavior "is stronger than that of calcium intake and bone mass, lead ingestion and lower IQ, condom non-use and sexually acquired HIV, and environmental tobacco smoke and lung cancer, all associations that clinicians accept as fact, and on which preventive medicine is based without question." 

Television can be profoundly influential in shaping an impressionable child or adolescent's values, attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors. Television reaches children at a younger age and for more time than any other socializing influence, except family. The average child spends 25 hours a week watching television, more time than they spend in school or engaged in any other activity except sleep.

It is estimated that by the time an average child leaves elementary school, he or she will have witnessed 8,000 murders and over 100,000 other acts of violence.  By the time that child is 18 years-of-age; he or she will witness 200,000 acts of violence, including 40,000 murders. One 17-year longitudinal study concluded that teens who watched more than one hour of TV a day were almost four times as likely as other teens to commit aggressive acts in adulthood.

Why is the role of prescribed drugs ignored?

Daily Mail, UK - An Oxford University study found that men – and women – in their late teens and early 20s – were almost 50 per cent more likely to be convicted of offences from assault to murder when taking SSRI drugs. This family of anti-depressants includes Prozac, as well as Seroxat, Lustral, Cipralex and Cipramil, the most commonly prescribed of the pills. 

In the US around 11 per cent of people aged 12 and over take antidepressants, including SSRIs, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.  

Men and women in their late teens and early 20s were almost 50 per cent more likely to be convicted of offences from assault to murder when they were taking SSRI drugs, new research has found

CCHR - At least 35 school shootings and/or school-related acts of violence have been committed by those taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs resulting in 169 wounded and 79 killed (in other school shootings, information about their drug use was never made public—neither confirming or refuting if they were under the influence of prescribed drugs).  The most important fact about this list, is that these are only cases where the information about their psychiatric drug use was made public.

Some other questions

Mississippi has approximately the same rate of gun ownership as New Hampshire yet has five times as many murders per capita. The same is true of Louisiana and Maine: five times as many murders per capita in Louisiana despite roughly the same rate of gun ownership. Why?

The growth in school shootings is a fairly new phenomenon while guns aren't. Why?

According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, California rates an A- on gun control and ranks 42^nd in gun violence. Maine ranks 37^th in gun violence yet gets an F on its gun control.  Why?  

Why does the media always feature military experts but not peace experts?

How many schools teach non-violence?