Gun Culture in the USA. The Initial Print News Coverage of the Parkland High School Shooting and Further Frames (original) (raw)

School Shootings and Gun Culture in the United States: Promoting Awareness and Theories for Change

The school shooting on October 1, 2015, at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, ended with another ten people dead (including the shooter); as the President of the United States has said repeatedly, these types of tragedies do not happen in other industrialized countries. Because of the lack of political and social leadership on these matters, the onus falls on researchers, activists, and concerned citizens to speak up for change. The authors of this paper hope to bring attention to the issues of school shooting and gun control. Utilizing existing philosophical and sociological resources, the authors of this paper will show how school shootings have become an epidemic in the United States of America. The authors of this paper will also show relevant data and initiatives, which could provide for a reduction in numbers of these types of tragedies.

School shootings, the media, and public fear: Ingredientsfor a moral panic

Crime, law and social change, 1999

Abstract. Recent shootings at schools around the country have resulted in widespread fear and panic among both students and parents, prompting a myriad of responses to make schools safer. Yet, empirical data suggest that despite the recent shootings, schools remain ...

GUN VIOLENCE AND SCHOOL SAFETY IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS

Wiley handbook of education policy, 2016

Sadly, violence in our schools is a reality of both our present and our past. Agnich (2014) found that the Southern region of the United States has the highest prevalence of incidents, that 70% of the incidents involved firearms, most often involved a high school, and significant discrepancies between urban and suburban settings. Eadens, Labat, Papa, Eadens, and Labat (2016) found that although Mississippi legislators were proposing legislation that armed teachers, but 61% of Mississippi principals surveyed were against such a practice. Some states legislation gives the school authority to designate a duly authorized concealed weapon carrier in the school. Other advanced countries have utilized gun control legislation with significant decreases in the numbers of people dying from mass shootings. Too often, schools are using zero tolerance policies and continue to spend scarce resources on armed guards and other fortification efforts. Instead, resources should be directed towards school counselors and the development of threat assessment teams. Media also plays a tremendous role in giving shooters notoriety and encouraging dangerous copycat behavior. If we can change the culture to one of intervention, it has the potential to change the culture and save lives.

School shootings: Making sense of the senseless

Aggression and Violent Behavior, 2009

School shootings have altered the patina of seclusion and safety that once characterized public and higher education. Callous and brutal, school shootings seem to make no sense. However, case comparisons and anecdotal reports are beginning to show patterns that provide clues for understanding both the individual factors motivating shooting events and the characteristics of schools where shootings have occurred. We describe these factors and characteristics as the bases for six prevention strategies: (a) strengthening school attachment, (b) reducing social aggression, (c) breaking down codes of silence, (d) establishing screening and intervention protocols for troubled and rejected students, (e) bolstering human and physical security, and (6) increasing communication within educational facilities and between educational facilities and local resources.

Forget the Adults Parkland School Shooting: Running Amok in a Society Without

2018

The Parkland school massacre is related to its social reactions in the context of humanity’s digital transformation. This first part shows how paralysis, anger, lack of trust on the part of the victims, and their imprisonment in uncertainty about the present and future influence the reactions of the media and those in positions of responsibility. Individual disintegration and the imminent collapse of the system point to the same overload: denial of an unbearable, incalculable situation. This is a problem for which the school system cannot take responsibility, nor is it being cared for externally. The second part of the essay explores how the search for an “insane lone perpetrator,” who is recognized and has to be denied access to guns, is a product of the system. This system ignores both the actual circumstances of how someone becomes a school shooter and the significant study on school shootings published in 2004. According to this study, school shooters are mostly suicidal and bullied students who want to achieve more than they can and announce their deeds in despair. The multi-causal context of how a student becomes a frenzied school shooter remains ignored. Instead of analyzing the prevailing educational and social system, the fiction of an insane lone perpetrator is maintained, perpetuating the problem of school shooters until the next killing spree. The third part addresses why this problem is also relevant to Austria. It outlines the critical situation of the global education system and schoolchildren and examines why a further drastic deterioration brought about by digitalization is to be expected. The necessity of self-initiative and the steps the author asks for help to solve the growing problems and open up new possibilities are shown.

Research in School Shootings

Sociology Compass, 2007

Studies of school shootings have been conducted in a variety of disciplines, including sociology, psychology, and media studies. However, to date there is no unified body of knowledge about such events. In an effort to synthesize past studies, and to orient future studies in school shootings, this article (i) offers a typology for understanding the varieties of school shooting incidents, including rampages, mass murders, terrorist attacks, targeted attacks, and government shootings; (ii) examines the mass media dynamic of school shootings; and (iii) presents a synthesis of the multilevel causes suggested in the research, including those on the individual, community, and social levels. Suggestions for future studies in school shootings are explored.