It’s no secret that there has been a mass shooting problem in the United States. In the past decade, hundreds of lives have been lost by this seemingly unsolvable issue. Recently, the shooting rates have drastically increased, but no one can seem to answer why the rates have increased. With gun laws becoming stricter, it is harder for people to just go out and get a gun. For example, according to The Gun Control Act of 1968, any person who has been declared by a court as mentally defective or has been committed to a mental institution, unlawfully uses or is addicted to any controlled substance, subject to certain types of restraining orders, and/or convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence (just to name a few) may not legally purchase a firearm.
Not a year has gone by since the Columbine school shooting where another mass shooting has not happened. According to Shooting Tracker, as of August 10, 2015, there have been 225 shootings this year alone, resulting in over 300 fatalities and over 800 injuries. That is on average about six shootings, nine fatalities, and 24 injuries per week. Out of these 224 shootings, only a handful have been reported through major media outlets.
The last mass shooting that was reported in the mainstream media was the Lafayette movie theater shooting, and there have been 19 mass shootings since then. So why hasn’t the media reported on all of these shootings? If all shootings were reported to the public, maybe we, as a country, would be working towards creating policies that outlaw handguns once and for all.
According to www.nraila.org, currently in Washington State a person is not required to have a permit to purchase, a registration of the firearm, a license of the owners, or a permit to carry any rifle or shotgun. There are also no state licensing requirements for the possession of rifles, shotguns or handguns. Eric Harris and Dylan Kiebold shot up Columbine High School in Littleton, CO, killing 15 people (including themselves) and wounding 21 others. Since then, there have been at least 17 mass shootings that have used some form of rifle or shotgun, and at least 37 that have used some form of a handgun. However, in many cases, the gunmen have used a combination of both types of guns.
The media only reports on a slim number of these shootings. While I tried to find a pattern to try and understand why certain mass shootings get reported on and others do not, unfortunately there wasn’t one. Race does not always come into play when the mass shooting is reported on, or when it isn’t. In fact, location, race, age, victim count or weapon type didn’t matter in whether or not mass shootings were nationally reported on.Out of 29 mass shootings that were reported on since 2005, 14 of the 29 shooters committed suicide. But they were still reported on, and if you think about it, their names are still remembered, or at least recognized. It doesn't matter that they did something absolutely terrible; they still get celebertized in a way. We never get to know the motive or reasoning behind the individuals who commit suicide, but we can guess that they do it for attention.
I will leave you with this question: should the media report on these more often to inform the public, even though they are creating celebrities out of the shooters by doing so, or is it is better that they don't report on all of them, resulting in the shooters having less attention?
