Dallas didn't think it would happen to them.
Sandy Hook didn't think it would happen to them.
San Bernadino didn't think it would happen to them.
It can't happen in Grand Haven.
We’re just a tiny little tourist beach town. Our biggest problem is teenagers smoking weed and drinking alcohol in their basements trying to grow up too fast.
No shooting, no bombing, no national news tragedy would ever happen here.
That's what they all thought.
But it did.
So now, in my calm hometown, I walk a little faster at night to my car after work, I look around anxiously on a busy day downtown. I live in fear.
Nobody thinks it can happen there. Until it does.
And with it on the news every week, you wait until it happens next and hope it's not in your community.
It's a sad reality, nobody should ever have to think there's even a chance of a massacre down the road. But we do, all over the country. It is a completely justified fear. Studies have proven suicides have a definite ripple effect, and with 351 shootings this year alone (so far), we can’t deny the possibility of shootings being contagious. As of right now, thanks to a study done by Arizona State University, we can understand some of the reasoning behind the horrific pattern.
The researchers involved analyzed 396 shootings (mass and school) in years between 1976 and 2003. They concluded that a mass shooting is more likely to occur within 13 days of another crime similar with media coverage.
I have always said the media is part of the problem in many situations. This one specifically. When news outlets give so much attention to someone who commits such a heinous crime, it glorifies them, they get a nickname, they inspire others. If a shooter knows they can get national attention for an act of violence and become a celebrity, that’s all they need to push them over the edge. As I have learned from my abundance of time watching crime shows like NCIS, media outlets can help prevent that sense of fame by not publishing the shooters picture or name unless necessary or release graphic images of the event. While it is a journalist’s job to inform the public, they do not always need to know and see everything, especially if it is in the better interest of society as a whole.
I spent four years as a student journalist, and in that time my school was shaken by multiple suicides, and as a publication, we had specific guidelines on how to handle them from a reporting standpoint. My question is, where are the guidelines for covering mass shootings? We know suicides covered poorly can lead to others, and now with studies coming out proving mass shootings can be contagious in the same way, why are we not handling them in a similar manner? I’m not saying you follow the same guide lines because yes, they are completely different situations, but there is an entire website dedicated to covering suicide in the media including do’s and don’ts and how to minimize the domino effect. Make one for mass shootings, come to a consensus among media outlets, behavioral analysis professionals, psychologists, whoever we need, to at least make an attempt to help this issue. Who knows if handling the events differently in the news would make a difference, but if there is even a chance to save lives, why wouldn’t you take it?
Now I know the media is not the devil and they are not to blame, of course there are more factors involved in such tragic events. There is much we don’t understand. For many, including myself, just the thought of raising a gun to someone else for any reason other than self defense is hard to comprehend. There is no right answer when it comes to gun laws in America. There is no easy way to explain why people do what they do. But there is one thing we now understand. How we handle these things now affect the future. We must take a proactive role in this issue and do something about the one part we are beginning to understand.
I live in fear in small town Grand Haven.
A 17-year-old girl thousands of miles away also lives in fear just as I do.
Almost every day another tragedy shows up on the morning news.
Some little town didn’t expect it.
Someone new lives in fear.
We just don’t understand it.
We can’t stop it.
But we can try to do something to help it.
If nothing else, we can try to ease the fear so nobody has to walk a little faster on a calm night.
We should not have to live in fear.
