Cedars, January 2018

January 2018 12 OFF CAMPUS by Breanna Beers and Alexandria Hentschel L as Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Orlan- do: these cities have come to repre- sent not just locations, but tragedies that have torn apart both individual lives and the nation as a whole. The United States is home to more mass shootings than any other nation by a wide margin. According to a study pub- lished by Dr. Adam Lankford of the Univer- sity of Alabama, the United States has had 90 mass shootings from 1966 to 2012; no other country has had more than 18. Adjusted for population, the disparity remains, and the reason seems clear: there are simply more guns in circulation among the United States population. The United States has almost 90 guns for every 100 cit- izens; most other countries have 30 or less. The rate of mass shootings does not cor- relate with homicide rates, which indicate the overall level of violence in a country, or suicide rates, which can signal levels of mental health. History and law professor Dr. Marc Clauson explained that while most other countries assert that citizens must proac- tively earn the right to gun ownership, the founders of the United States began with the opposite assumption: that the right to bear arms is inherent, to be taken away only if a person has proven themselves incapable of managing it responsibly. “People in Europe don’t even care about owning guns,” Clauson said. “They’ve not grown up with the sense that they want their guns for anything. When guns began to be made in greater num- bers, right away there were restrictions placed. Over here, when we enacted the Constitution, we immediately put in the Second Amendment because of the cul- ture that already existed.” According to Clauson, the culture that led the founders to write gun ownership into the Constitution was one that strongly valued individualism and freedom. As they were shaping a country that was created from an uprising against an overbearing empire, the founding fathers wanted to en- sure that such tyranny could not return in the future. “We didn’t want the kinds of restric- tions that were easily accepted in Europe,” Clauson said. “We’ve always used guns for self-defense or for hunting or for militias or things like that.” However, the world has learned all too well that when dangerous tools end up in the wrong hands, tragedy ensues. Don Parvin of Campus Safety and Security spoke about the role of mental health in incidents of mass violence. Specifically, he mentioned the lone wolf mentality, which describes a person who tends to isolate himself or her- self from others, physically, emotionally, and mentally. “A lot of what goes on is based on men- tal health issues and the fact that there’s something not quite right,” Parvin said. “The lone wolf mentality is an indoctrinat- ed state of mind, where they’ve exposed themselves to whatever this doctrine might be, whatever this thought process might be, whatever this belief system might be, that they have to do this.” Lone wolf perpetrators are danger- ous because they are closed off from the shared moral values and rational thought that other members of society possess. Yet according to Parvin, our nation already has laws in place to prevent those types of people from accessing weapons; it’s just a question of how effectively those laws are enforced. “If we put as much effort into enforc- ing the laws that exist as we do in trying to create new laws, we’d actually be further ahead,” Parvin said. “We have plenty of laws in place. Every time I buy a gun, I have to go through an incredible background check. It’s four pages long, and it takes a good half- hour to 40 minutes to go through that back- ground check.” In many cases, people with close re- lationships to the perpetrators of mass shootings are aware of mental health issues. However, that information is often not com- municated to the agencies in charge of regu- lating gun ownership. Yet, even if it were, guns can often be accessed through other means, whether by borrowing, stealing, or purchasing them privately. As time goes on, the country has grown increasingly divided over the issue of gun control, especially as events such as the recent mass shooting in Las Vegas dominate the headlines. “Immediately, people are saying, ‘Well, what should we do?’” Clauson said. “We restrict guns or we don’t restrict guns. It comes into the conversation almost imme- diately.” If sensationalized language, divisive statements, or emotional tension can lead readers to read, share, or spread a story, news outlets that use those tactics are the ones that will succeed. “They will try to push the story and keep it alive as long as they can,” Clauson explained. “There’s even a tendency to use language in the stories that’s overly emo- tionalized.” However, Parvin has concerns about media analysis of mass shootings beyond mere interest in the quality of news cover- age. He fears that heightened media focus on acts of mass violence may unintentional- ly perpetuate criminal behavior. “The media always talks about the per- son,” Parvin explained. “They talked about the guy in Las Vegas, they talked about the guy in Sutherland Springs, they keep talking about the guys. And so what hap- pens is people think, ‘I can make a name for myself, I can become famous. If I do something like this, I’ll get that same noto- riety.’ That’s often what happens with the copycat effect.” Analysis: Gun Violence in the United States Is it getting worse, or are we just paying more attention? Infographic by Tasha Peterson