Everyone deals with shock
and grief in different ways in the aftermath of events like the Newtown, Connecticut,
school shootings. Some go to church,
others gather near the site of the horrific event, I write. I write in the hope that I can play a small
role in preventing other communities from suffering the horror and anguish that
has befallen mine.
The proliferation of guns is
the obvious place to look for answers, but there have been various periods in
American history when guns were more commonplace than today, yet gunslingers,
frontiersmen, even gangsters didn’t bust into school houses and randomly kill our
precious children. This is as much a
product of our popular culture, as it is the number of guns in our society; and
mass media, principally television and video games, plays a significant role.
Media likely contributes to
the means, the motive, and the state of mind necessary to carry out such
heinous crimes.
It would be safe to say that
a significant number of young people have killed with impunity and without
remorse in the stark reality of sophisticated video games; and that the
majority of Americans consume prodigious amounts of TV and motion pictures that
depict killing as commonplace, dispassionate, and a natural outcome of fear,
pain and anger. Why then do we find it
unimaginable that mentally unstable, impressionable Americans can
indiscriminately kill masses of people in public places?
In many respects, life has
been devalued by TV and video games. Killing
is all too often justified and without remorse.
The viewer is emotionally detached from the associated pain and
suffering. This is the type of media
Americans consume everyday and applaud as good entertainment, and our kids grow
up watching it.
Gone are the days of ubiquitous,
socially redeemable programming like Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best
that culminated with a valuable life-lesson at the end of every episode. Today, we are frequently left with inane,
morally corrupting messages. Disrespectful,
confrontational, or violent behavior has infected nearly every type of
television programming from talk shows and sports commentaries to sitcoms,
reality shows and dramas.
Media, particularly TV news,
also helps provide the means for committing these murders by creating an
atmosphere of irrational fear which in turn drives people to acquire weapons
and fervently defend their right to do so.
The old media adage “if it bleeds it leads” the daily news is as current
today as it ever was, maybe more so.
Crime stories dominate the nightly news and give viewers the false impression
there is a clear and present danger to their life and property.
Law enforcement officials reported
that the alleged 20 year old shooter at the Sandy Hook Elementary
School appeared to have used three semi-automatic
weapons owned by his mother, a teacher at the school. A troubling question is why a single,
middle-aged mother, would have such an arsenal better suited for Afghanistan then one of the safest communities
in Connecticut. Irrational fear is likely the answer.
Weapons in the home are
rarely a deterrent and they have been known to be used against their owners in
the course of an unarmed crime. There
are far more incidents of these guns playing a role in teen suicides,
accidental deaths, and tragedies like Newtown,
than in thwarting crime.
As expected, the topic of
gun control is dominating the conversation in the aftermath of Newtown and for good reason. If virtually anyone can purchase a weapon,
particularly assault weapons and semi-automatic handguns, we are going to see
more random mass killings. In fact, the
rate of mass shootings in America
has steadily increased in the last 30 years along with the growing number of
handguns according to a study conducted by Mother
Jones, and the majority of mass shooter weapons were legally obtained. Better school security, police response
times, and the like cannot fully protect our children because they are
vulnerable in countless other places.
The deranged perpetrators of
these monstrous crimes want to display their mental anguish and wrath to the
world, and media provides the worldwide forum, in other words, the motive. The incentive is clear to these killers, the greater
the number of people they kill, the greater the breadth and duration of the
news coverage. This is a fact not to be lost
on future mass killers waiting in the shadows.
Gun control legislation is
important, but changing the role of media and how we consume it are equally so. If no meaningful social change comes as a
result of this unthinkable horror in Newtown,
then we allow these innocent victims to die in vain.
