Abstract
Violent Media, Guns, and Mental Illness: The Three Ring Circus of Causal Factors for School Massacres, as Related in Media Discourse
Highlights
When news of a school shooting breaks, most people struggle to come to terms with the tragedy and begin their quest for answers to a number of questions
In an effort to answer this question, two groups have emerged as key narrators of the school shootings story
New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte recently weighed in on the tragedy in Newtown, stating, “ when we look at what happened in Sandy Hook we should have a fuller discussion to make sure that it doesn’t happen again” (Kelly Ayotte, quoted in Associated Press, 2013)
Summary
Perhaps one of the more interesting discourses that have emerged following each of these school shootings is the idea that the cause of the event must be bigger than the shooters themselves. After Virginia Tech, and following the passage of the NICS Improvement Amendments Act, the majority of the funds made available were never claimed and millions of records still have not been added to background check systems, leaving many people who should be disqualified eligible to legally purchase firearms (Brady Campaign Press Release, 2011; Witkin, 2012) These lapses in reporting enabled other mass shooters, including Jared Loughner (who recently pled guilty to the Tucson, Arizona shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and others, despite spending a year and a half being “incompetent to stand trial”) and James Holmes (who shot 70 people at a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises and, nine months after the shooting, has decided to claim the insanity defense) to purchase their guns legally. Despite the fact that one can never have a risk of zero, it doesn’t keep people from worrying, though it gets them nowhere
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