[newyorker]Thresholds of Violence: How school shootings catch on

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DrPizza

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There's a part that I agree with. The idea that someone wouldn't join in on looting, unless there were a lot of other looters in front of them already engaging in looting. The constant barrage of sensationalized school shootings has served as that nudge toward contemplating taking the same action.
 

MagnusTheBrewer

IN MEMORIAM
Jun 19, 2004
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"He's obsessive. He insists on applying logic and analysis to things that most of us know we're not supposed to be logical and analytical about."

I think his argument makes some sense. Internet culture values a lack of empathy, promotes atheism, and holds logic as the key to greater understanding. 'Youts ' who have no direction and a low threshold are easily influenced by nihilism espoused on the web.
 

Exterous

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There's a part that I agree with. The idea that someone wouldn't join in on looting, unless there were a lot of other looters in front of them already engaging in looting. The constant barrage of sensationalized school shootings has served as that nudge toward contemplating taking the same action.

I think nudge might be too light of a word. The sad thing is is that the news outlets know this effect exists but can't stop plastering 24/7 coverage over every outlet possible.

For years, forensic psychiatrists have been urging American journalists to reform the way they report on these incidents. In a 2009 BBC interview, perhaps the best known among those psychiatrists, Dr. Park Dietz, said: “We’ve had 20 years of mass murders throughout which I have repeatedly told CNN and our other media, if you don’t want to propagate more mass murders, don’t start the story with 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, not to make the killer some kind of anti-hero. Do localize the story to the affected community and make it as boring as possible in every other market. Because every time we have intense saturation coverage of a mass murder, we expect to see one or two more within a week.”
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/does-media-coverage-of-school-shootings-lead-to-more-school-shootings/Content?oid=20329038

Researchers at Texas State University have found many of the shooters are partially motivated by fame and have looked to past shooters for inspiration.

Now the FBI is encouraging media organizations to rethink the way they cover these stories by not focusing as much attention on the shooters. They call it the "Don't Name Them" campaign.
http://www.ksat.com/news/fbi-to-media-dont-name-mass-shooters

esearchers gathered records of school shootings and mass killings from several data sets and fit them into a mathematical "contagion model." The spread they found was not dependent on location, leading researchers to believe that national media coverage of a mass shooting might play a role. On average, mass shootings occur about once every two weeks in the United States and school shootings happen about once a month, the study said.

"What we believe may be happening is national news media attention is like a 'vector' that reaches people who are vulnerable," said Sherry Towers, a research professor at Arizona State University and lead author of the study.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/02/health/contagious-mass-killings-study/

A 1999 study by Dr. Mullen and others in the Archives of Suicide Research suggested that a 10-year outbreak of mass homicides had occurred in clusters rather than randomly. This effect was also found in a 2002 study by a group of German psychiatrists who examined 132 attempted rampage killings world-wide. There is a growing consensus among researchers that, whether or not the perpetrators are fully aware of it, they are following what has become a ready-made, free-floating template for young men to resolve their rage and express their sense of personal grandiosity.

Whatever the witch's brew of influences that produced this grisly script, treating mass killings as a kind of epidemic or contagion largely frees us from having to understand the particular causes of each act. Instead, we can focus on disrupting the spread.

There is a precedent for this approach in dealing with another form of violence: suicides. A 2003 study led by Columbia University psychiatrist Madelyn Gould found "ample evidence" of a suicide contagion effect, fed by reports in the media. A 2011 study in the journal BMC Public Health found, unsurprisingly, that this effect is especially strong for novel forms of suicide that receive outsize attention in the press.

Some researchers have even put the theory to the test. In 1984, a rash of suicides broke out on the subway system in Vienna. As the death toll climbed, a group of researchers at the Austrian Association for Suicide Prevention theorized that sensational reporting was inadvertently glorifying the suicides. Three years into the epidemic, the researchers persuaded local media to change their coverage by minimizing details and photos, avoiding romantic language and simplistic explanations of motives, moving the stories from the front page and keeping the word "suicide" out of the headlines. Subway suicides promptly dropped by 75%.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303309504579181702252120052

So even while running articles about how media coverage increases the chances of this happening again they go right ahead do everything they know they shouldn't
 

blankslate

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Jun 16, 2008
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Obviously this article missed the point...

The way to mitigate school massacres is to give the professors 5-10 hours per week of training with a magazine fed, gas operated, air-cooled rifle or carbine capable of selective fire in either semi-automatic mode or 3-round burst. They should qualify with the weapon once a month on a pop-up range ideally, but paper targets are acceptable.

They should be required to open carry the fire-arms they subsequently receive, after going through the the first block of 5-10 hour training followed by qualification, on campus.

The professors would also be encouraged to obtain a CCW and carry a handun to and from work on the campus.

If a professor is unable or unwilling to do the above they are obviously not patriotic enough to educate the upcoming generation of Homeland defenders.


....
 

momeNt

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Jan 26, 2011
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So is media hysteria in an ultra competitive environment to capture the viewership of the world's #1 consumer nation causing so many shootings in that nation?

A way to safely test this theory (as far as America is concerned) against other theories (guns) is to maybe get the cooperation of other country news outlets to publicize our mass shootings as if they were their own. Give a different country a dose of American media. See if those countries start catching the bug?
 

momeNt

Diamond Member
Jan 26, 2011
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Obviously this article missed the point...

The way to mitigate school massacres is to give the professors 5-10 hours per week of training with a magazine fed, gas operated, air-cooled rifle or carbine capable of selective fire in either semi-automatic mode or 3-round burst. They should qualify with the weapon once a month on a pop-up range ideally, but paper targets are acceptable.

They should be required to open carry the fire-arms they subsequently receive, after going through the the first block of 5-10 hour training followed by qualification, on campus.

The professors would also be encouraged to obtain a CCW and carry a handun to and from work on the campus.

If a professor is unable or unwilling to do the above they are obviously not patriotic enough to educate the upcoming generation of Homeland defenders.


....

See your brand of hysteria is about guns. It is quite possible that it's hysteria in general that makes these killings re-occur.
 

blankslate

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See your brand of hysteria is about guns. It is quite possible that it's hysteria in general that makes these killings re-occur.

Actually, I rather enjoyed the times I fired such weapons. However, there are a number of people who have them I'd prefer to stay well away from. But yeah keep on going with your stereotypes if you want.


....
 

momeNt

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Jan 26, 2011
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Actually, I rather enjoyed the times I fired such weapons. However, there are a number of people who have them I'd prefer to stay well away from. But yeah keep on going with your stereotypes if you want.


....

You are missing my point.


You are missing the boat entirely thinking this is about guns. If the New yorker article has a valid point, trying to capitalize on every shooting as a talking point about gun control and the media / social media hysteria that follows it is the actual problem.
 

blankslate

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Jun 16, 2008
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You are missing the boat entirely thinking this is about guns. If the New yorker article has a valid point, trying to capitalize on every shooting as a talking point about gun control and the media / social media hysteria that follows it is the actual problem.

You're missing my point. The talking points don't matter. Because even a tentative measure like expanding the use of background checks, that had wide support even among owners of firearms, didn't get far along in the process of drafting a bill.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-brief...un-owners-support-universal-background-checks
Ninety-two percent of voters, including 92 percent of gun owners and 86 percent of Republicans, support background checks prior to all gun sales, according to a new poll from Quinnipiac University.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...giffords-says-americans-overwhelmingly-suppo/




So why not try arming professors and teachers?



.....
 
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Fenixgoon

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Jun 30, 2003
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There's a part that I agree with. The idea that someone wouldn't join in on looting, unless there were a lot of other looters in front of them already engaging in looting. The constant barrage of sensationalized school shootings has served as that nudge toward contemplating taking the same action.

this has been documented in psychology journals :(
 

momeNt

Diamond Member
Jan 26, 2011
9,290
352
126
You're missing my point. The talking points don't matter. Because even a tentative measure like expanding the use of background checks, that had wide support even among owners of firearms, didn't get far along in the process of drafting a bill.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-brief...un-owners-support-universal-background-checks


http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...giffords-says-americans-overwhelmingly-suppo/




So why not try arming professors and teachers?



.....

I'm not sure how to read your "...."
 

Londo_Jowo

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Jan 31, 2010
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Ninety-two percent of voters, including 92 percent of gun owners and 86 percent of Republicans, support background checks prior to all gun sales, according to a new poll from Quinnipiac University.

100% of the guns I own, I had to pass a background check prior to purchasing them.
100% of the Conceal Weapons Permit/Concealed Handgun License I've applied for and received required a background check. The last one required classroom instruction and written/proficiency testing to acquire.
 

Joepublic2

Golden Member
Jan 22, 2005
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"He's obsessive. He insists on applying logic and analysis to things that most of us know we're not supposed to be logical and analytical about."

I think his argument makes some sense. Internet culture values a lack of empathy, promotes atheism, and holds logic as the key to greater understanding. 'Youts ' who have no direction and a low threshold are easily influenced by nihilism espoused on the web.

This, and I'd throw in the poor state of mental health care (esp wrt minors) along with the atomizing effects of mass society.

http://www.livescience.com/846-americans-lose-touch-report-close-friends.html

New research compared studies from 1985 and 2004. On average, each person in 2004 reported 2.08 close friends—those they can discuss important matters with. That's down from 2.94 people in 1985.

People who said they had no one with whom to discuss such matters more than doubled, to nearly 25 percent.
 

DrPizza

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I think nudge might be too light of a word. The sad thing is is that the news outlets know this effect exists but can't stop plastering 24/7 coverage over every outlet possible.


http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/...to-more-school-shootings/Content?oid=20329038


http://www.ksat.com/news/fbi-to-media-dont-name-mass-shooters


http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/02/health/contagious-mass-killings-study/


http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303309504579181702252120052

So even while running articles about how media coverage increases the chances of this happening again they go right ahead do everything they know they shouldn't

this has been documented in psychology journals :(

Yep, I'm very aware that this has been researched. Thus, oddly, the media is now "forced" into the position of helping make accessibility to firearms, types of firearms, 2nd Amendment, etc., the focal point of the issue of these mass shootings, because the REAL solution isn't within the 2nd Amendment, it's related more to the 1st Amendment, and the right of the press to... make money.
 
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