2017-03-27
Change
Are they spoiled, drugged, or have they watched too many action films? Perhaps, it’s video games, or a breakdown of the family unit, and a sick thirst for notoriety. With 15 school shootings happening in the last two years, what is the cause of such violence?

The massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown Connecticut, Virginia Teach shootings, Columbine, and at an Oregon High School have parents looking into bullet-proof book bags. Arkansas gave 13 school districts permission to train teachers as armed guards, while Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Ohio already have armed guards on duty.

Some experts charge the media as the culprit. A forensic expert said excessive media coverage glorifying the shooters with front page spreads and around the clock television coverage should rethink their ratings if they want to avoid mass killings.

“We’ve had 20 years of mass murders, throughout which I’ve repeatedly told CNN and our other media,” he told the International Business Times in 2012. “‘If you don’t want to propagate mass murders don’t start the story of sirens blaring. Don’t have photographs of the killer. Don’t make this 24/7 coverage. Do everything you can not to make the body count the lead story and not to make the killer some kind of anti-hero.”

Kids involved in school violence tend to feel bullied and unheard among peers. They use weapons as a source of power. Recently, there has been a public health approach to preventing violence since its spreads like a disease in society, costing taxpayers an estimated U.S. $174 billion in 2010, according to the American Public Health Association.

The American Psychological Association agreed that the best way to tackle the issue is to treat gun violence as a public health crisis. They found in a poll that most Americans believe that stricter gun control was needed followed by making God and morality more of a focus in society. 

After the shooting at Sandy Hook many believed the lack of access to mental health care was the factor in many shootings and that mental health workers could have predicted the carnage.

There is little data to support the theory that increasing mental health support would reduce gun violence without taking away civil liberties, wrote Dr. John Grohol, the founder and CEO of Psych Central. Connecticut State Attorney Stephen Sedensky concluded that Adam Lanza showed no signs of illness in a 2012 report to raise alarm.

“Lanza was not known to be a violent kid at all and never spoke of violence. Despite a fascination with mass shootings and firearms, he displayed no aggressive or threatening tendencies.”

There’s a multitude of factors for the reason one becomes a killer. A person’s mental balance, spiritual health, family background, and the media to a certain extent, all contribute.

Tell us what you think.

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