Often in the media since the horrible tragedies of the Newtown and Sandy Hook school shootings, as well as the Aurora Theater Shooting in Colorado, it almost seems that mass shootings are increasing in frequency all over the country. However, could it be possible that media coverage of mass shootings is all that is increasing? Is it possible that now because these things are in the public eye the media decides to emphasize similar stories?
An article from The Washington Post published in December 2012, which you can read here, claims that mass shootings are in fact on a steady rise, and have been rising in frequency since the 1980s. If this has been happening since the 1980s, yet this phenomenon of a media obsessed with mass shootings has been a product of the past year or two, why is it the general public seems to only notice now? Or perhaps we’ve just arrived at a peak of mass shootings that has reached a numbers so high it’s nearly impossible to ignore anymore.
Another interesting claim from the previous Washington Post article is that they also state, “other types of homicides and violent crimes are becoming less frequent,” which of course raises the question, “why are only mass shootings on the rise?” One theory given is that mass shootings that gain a lot of attention in the public eye tend to influence others to commit similar acts of violence, giving the idea of a pattern of exponential growth for such crime rates a large amount of validity.
Contrary to all of this, data collected by James Allan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University, has shown that there is in fact no increase in mass shootings since 1980. This information can be read about in an article written by Fox on Boston.com here. What’s different about Fox’s data is that he uses the FBI’s standard definition of a “mass” shooting, which is a shooting that “involves 4 or more victims.” The previous data used by The Washington Post excluded shootings that involved gang violence or armed robbery, sticking exclusively to school shootings similar to Virginia Tech. This means that the previous information of other violent crimes being on a downswing are a true current trend, yet this also sadly means school shootings and tragedies of that variety may vary well be on an upswing as the first set of data suggested.
In conclusion, according to the two separate statistics of data collected, mass shootings could either be on the rise or remaining stagnant. What is important to consider is the collection of data that refers to school based shootings to be on the rise. Whether you choose that to be the more relevant data or not, it is important to consider this possibility so that you can be aware of what you personally can do about this issue. If you or anyone you know has knowledge of possible violence to occur on campus, it is incredibly important to inform a figure of authority, it could save lives. Remember, your voice counts.
