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mass shootings

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Whether or not school districts should hire armed guards is complex, requiring thoughtful consideration from parents, students, community members, educators, school administrators and elected officials.

But as we work through the intricacies of this sensitive and often contentious issue, a related matter is worthy of our attention: How can we appropriately cover mass shootings when these tragic events arise?

The Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are injured or killed. Unfortunately, mass shootings are commonplace in this country. Already in 2023, there have been more mass shootings than days in the year. As a nation, we have failed to address this critical policy concern. 

When one of these all-too-familiar violent events occurs, the press often too hastily reports on it. Helicopters circle above the crime scene as field reporters rush to the periphery, searching for immediate information. 

A tragedy soon becomes a spectacle. Within days — sometimes just hours — the suspect’s name is revealed to the public. Then the shooter’s image is flashed incessantly on every newsreel and in every major newspaper in America. As the media goes to work uncovering the personal details of the shooter’s life, a depraved human being is made into a national celebrity.

And this phenomenon is not unique to the press. Hollywood capitalizes on violence; the more graphic a film’s depictions, the more revenue it will generate. Violence sells in this country, whether in motion pictures, music, video games, digital media or newsprint. And the ubiquity of these images within American popular culture has the natural effect of normalizing violent behavior nationwide.

Here at TBR News Media, we reject this dynamic entirely. Mass violence in America should not be accepted as mainstream nor should it be sensationalized or embellished. With a medium that enables us to disperse information widely both in print and on the web, we are responsible for using our platform appropriately.

Research on mass shooters indicates they are often motivated by perceived isolation or social rejection. Some commit an atrocity to achieve a mark on the world, since even playing the villain can be preferable to obscurity.

As journalists, we must deny violent offenders precisely the attention and fame they so crave. We legitimize acts of violence when we publish names or run headshots of mass shooters. By lending our platform to the least deserving, we encourage copycat offenders.

It is time that we, the members of the press and the distributors of information, end the dramatization and glorification of mass violence in America. It is time to substitute sensationalism with rigid, objective reporting when violence inevitably ensues.

This same standard applies to digital media. In this century, so much of the information available to us is circulated online. For this reason, Big Tech has a similar obligation to monitor its content and halt the spread of personal details regarding mass shooters.

While restraining our coverage is necessary, mass violence deserves our close attention. Still, we must focus on the issues: Should we hire armed guards in and around schools? How do we keep guns out of the hands of potentially violent offenders? How can we expand access to mental health services, so fewer people resort to mass violence? And more.

The focus should be policy driven and victim centric. We should create awareness of the problem while working to identify solutions. But we must not say their names or run their headshots.

By covering shootings appropriately, we can do our part to curb the spread of mass violence. By applying these methods consistently, journalists can work to change the culture, save lives and make a positive difference for the nation and humanity.

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By Fr. Francis Pizzarelli

Father Frank Pizzarelli

When is enough, enough? How many more innocent children have to be martyred before we take the blinders off and heed the call to action?!

Twenty-one additional families have to live with the profound sense of loss of life of those they have loved. Nineteen innocent school-age children and two teachers were massacred by a depraved 18-year-old, who was legally allowed to purchase two automatic rifles that are used for war, not hunting or innocent self-defense. How can the people that we have elected to lead us remain silent? By their silence, they demonstrate complicity!

Does a senator or congressperson have to have his or her son or daughter murdered before they have the guts to stand up for justice and speak out for common sense gun safety? This is not about denying any American citizen his or her second amendment rights — it is about ensuring the safety of all American citizens, no matter what their age.

When will those who lead us have the guts to lead and not be bought off by the gun lobby, the insurance lobby or any other special interest groups that do not care about the life and safety of ordinary Americans?

Many in power are not doing their jobs on both sides of the aisle. They need to be voted out of office this election cycle. The silent majority needs to stand up, be counted and act on behalf of the innocent.

Schools were always a safe place for children to grow, learn and have fun. Another student body of more than 600 students has been traumatized. How long will it take for them to move beyond their fears? Some will carry this trauma for the rest of their lives; it will impact their journey forever. Other students will have a chance to recover, but it will be a hard road especially since this poor Texan community does not have the trained mental health professionals to assist these students and their families. 

Will government step in? Who knows? It seems rather clear by all the school shootings in the past 10 years that the government and our leadership does not care! 

Every religious leader who reads this column, I pray you have the courage to challenge your congregation to give voice to this very important human life issue. Every child in America deserves to feel safe and be safe in every environment. We need to demand universal background checks and common-sense gun safety laws that will protect all Americans everywhere.

We also need to develop national protocols when a high school student is identified as a threat to the safety of his or her classmates. Mental illness in this country is out of control and untreated. Suspension and/or expulsion does not ensure safety.  Remember the Parkland massacre!

Our children are our greatest gift. May they never experience the trauma of Sandy Hook or Robb Elementary School. May we have the courage to move beyond our deafness. Our children are counting on us! 

Father Francis Pizzarelli, SMM, LCSW-R, ACSW, DCSW, is the director of Hope House Ministries in Port Jefferson.

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Americans feel sorrow and fear whenever we learn that a gunmen carrying a high-powered firearm has committed a mass shooting. In one week, three shootings occurred in three separate states. While none of them took place on Long Island or even New York, the tragedy still hits home. The situation is for too long unbearable and action is overdue.

We are too often reminded that we aren’t safe whether we are at work, school, a movie theater, a store, nightclub, a concert or a festival. 

After the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018 many school districts on Long Island began contemplating whether or not to have armed guards, while systematically upgrading security in their buildings. Children coming back to school in the Comsewogue School District, for example, will walk through vestibules lined with bullet resistant glass.

One editor was talking about an upcoming garlic festival with a group of friends the other day when one shuddered and said, “Please, don’t go to any garlic festivals,” all in relation to a shooting at a garlic festival in Gilroy, California, July 28. 

After the recent tragedies, with one shooter robbing the lives of 22 in El Paso, Texas, and another killer murdering nine in Dayton, Ohio, with dozens injured in both cities, many have said that we need to remember these events and how we feel when we vote in 2020. Why wait? 

Our local legislators, even members of our boards of education, make decisions that affect our everyday lives. They can write stricter laws when it comes to purchasing and owning guns, allocate funding to patients seeking mental health care or help schools with grants for security. Make sure they are making the decisions you want them to. Even though the 2019 elections involve local municipalities and not federal offices, every legislator can affect laws that protect our lives and well-being.

This week’s headlines made many Americans feel helpless. Police responded to the Dayton shooting in 30 seconds since the first round left the gunman’s chamber. In that time, nine people were dead. The suspect used a 100-round magazine and a semi-automatic rifle. It took five times as long to write this paragraph as it took a murderer to kill nine people.

But there’s something all of us can do. We can vote for those who represent our values. This year and next, the time is now to look deep inside our hearts and ask what we feel is the best route to stop the violence. Then research the candidates who are running for office to see where they stand.

And even before election day, call your local representatives and tell them something must be done now, not after election day.

Every time you vote for a candidate, your ballot is a show of confidence to continue in the political realm. Today’s member of town council can be tomorrow’s county or state legislator or next year’s congressional leader.

Nov. 5, Election Day, will be here before you know it. The time is now to start doing the footwork and for everybody to vote. Our editorial staff will soon be hosting political debates to prepare for our election issue. We’re not waiting until 2020 to ask the candidates tough questions and neither should our readers.

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An assault rifle, the weapon of choice in many mass shootings, including the Feb. 14 massacre at a Florida high school. Stock photo

By Marci Lobel

Our nation is reeling from another school shooting involving a perpetrator who was psychologically disturbed. As we consider ways to prevent such tragedies from recurring, it is important to focus on what is known about gun violence. Only by understanding these facts can we develop strategies that are most likely to be effective.

Marci Lobel is a professor of psychology at SBU. Photo from Marci Lobel

First, the majority of gun violence is committed by people without mental illness. This is well documented by public health experts. A person with mental illness is much less likely than a person without a diagnosable mental illness to commit an act of gun violence. In fact, mentally ill people are more likely to be victims than perpetrators of gun violence. Inaccurate claims equating mental illness with gun violence promote stigma and misunderstanding about mentally ill people and may make it less likely that they will reach out to seek help.

Second, mass shootings are not as common as other acts of gun violence. Mass shootings in schools or elsewhere — churches, movie theaters, congressional softball games, music concerts — understandably receive a lot of attention because these tragedies are exceptionally horrifying, especially when children are victims. Nevertheless, the majority of deaths and unintended injuries by guns are not through mass shootings. Every day in the United States, 93 people die from gun violence on average, according to the key gun violence statistics page on www.bradycampaign.org.

Third, owning a gun or having one accessible puts you at risk of being killed by it. According to research published in 2015 in the Annals of Internal Medicine, homicides, suicides and accidental gun deaths are more numerous among gun owners and others in their household, especially children and women, than among people who don’t own guns. Research also shows that states with higher gun ownership have higher gun homicide rates, even after controlling for other predictors such as poverty and alcohol consumption, and states with gun control laws have fewer gun deaths. Additionally, numerous studies comparing developed countries find that the number of guns per capita is a strong, independent predictor of the number of gun deaths in that country.

“Guns not only permit violence, they can stimulate it as well. The finger pulls the trigger, but the trigger may also be pulling the finger.”

— Leonard Berkowitz

Fourth, the U.S. Supreme Court has endorsed the constitutional legitimacy of gun restrictions. In 2008, in delivering the opinion of the court, conservative Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. [It is] not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. … We also recognize another important limitation on the right to keep and carry arms. Miller [a previous court case] said, as we have explained, that the sorts of weapons protected were those ‘in common use at the time.’ We think that limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’”

Fifth, merely being in the presence of a gun increases aggression. This phenomenon, “the weapons effect,” is well demonstrated by social psychology research, which also finds that people recognize and react to guns very quickly. “Guns not only permit violence, they can stimulate it as well,” wrote Leonard Berkowitz in a 1967 study with Anthony LePage. “The finger pulls the trigger, but the trigger may also be pulling the finger.”

To truly protect our children, our families, our communities and our nation, we must adopt measures that are consistent with what is known about gun violence. The findings described above suggest that improving mental health outreach and treatment, while important in and of itself, will not solve the much larger problem of gun violence in American society. Stationing armed guards in our schools is not a solution — this endangers our children, teachers and those who work in schools because of the weapons effect described above. And even well-trained professionals are known to make errors in high-pressure situations. As to the idea of arming teachers, there are many more serious flaws with that idea than can be listed here. Furthermore, addressing mass shootings in our schools does nothing to eliminate the 93 gun deaths that occur day in and day out in this country.

Can we enact sensible gun policies? The Supreme Court has ruled that some gun restrictions are constitutional, and evidence indicates that gun control reduces gun deaths, even though it doesn’t completely eliminate them. The vast majority of Americans, including gun owners, support sensible gun policies. So what are we waiting for? We’re waiting for our political leaders to act. Demand action from your elected officials. Make phone calls, send letters, march, protest and vote. Get involved with organizations such as Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action. Demand action before another 93 people die tomorrow.

Marci Lobel is a professor of psychology and the director of the program in social and health psychology at Stony Brook University.