The date was April 20, 1999. The start of a new millennia was on the horizon. Little did anyone know the west would never be the same. Two teenage boys by the names of Eric Harris and Dylan Kleboid would take their own lives and thirteen of their peers’ lives. It was December 14, 2012. Christmas break was just coming up and at the forefront of any young students’ mind. Suburbia was waking up to another calm morning in the United States. On this morning, Adam Lanza decided to brutally murder twenty-eight people including himself and his mother, twenty six of those were at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. These were just two instances in a disturbing trend that has struck fear and mourning in the hearts of every American.

Natural Born Killers

Mass shootings have almost become common place in the American mind. A big reason for this is how irresponsibly these tragedies have been reported on. In a lot of these cases news trucks and reporters are on scene even before emergency services have had a chance to respond. Eyewitnesses forced into recounting horrific scenes of violence enacted on their friends, peers, and loved ones while the bodies are still warm. Facts mix with fiction as talking heads try to weave webs that will play into their interests.

The families and loved ones of the victims left wondering how this could have been avoided, what should have been done differently, and why them? These are all important questions and as a civilized society we all think similar things to ourselves when we watch from a bird’s eye view a line of students walking out of their school (a place many would like to think of as their second home or home away from home) and out of the dangerous school zone. We have seen victim Rachel Scott’s car engulfed in flowers and surrounded by a large prayer circle made up of people from the community. We have all seen and heard the cries and confusion, the blood-soaked t-shirts of adolescents that tried to save their defenseless friends. You’ve watched it on the news like any other television program. The way the media presents shootings has been in bad taste.

High Score

“The World Health Organization (WHO) is aware of suicide contagion and published a number of media guidelines for reporting suicide deaths (WHO, 2008). These include avoiding language that sensationalizes or normalizes suicide, or presents it as a solution to problems; avoiding prominent placement and undue repetition of stories about suicide; avoiding explicit description of the method used in a completed or attempted suicide; avoiding providing detailed information about the suicide; wording headlines carefully; exercising caution in using photographs or video footage; taking particular care in reporting celebrity suicides; showing due consideration for people bereaved by suicide; and providing information about where to seek help. Implementing similar recommendations for media coverage of suicide has been shown to decrease suicide rates (Etzersdorfer & Sonneck, 1998). A parallel evidence base has pointed to the media’s role in mass shooting contagion, just as with suicide. Research has found that publicized mass murders and suicides are associated with increases in suicide rates (Stack, 1989). A recent study found that mass killings involving firearms are incented by similar killings, and an increase in probability in this study lasted 13 days; each incident incited at least .30 new incidents (p .0015), and each school shooting incited at least .22 new incidents (p .0001; Towers, Gomez Lievano, Khan, Mubayi, & Castillo-Chavez, 2015). As Dr. Kaslow (2015) astutely points out, psychologists have “a responsibility to translate psychological science to the public” (p. 361). May I advocate that we as a field immediately heed her call in the area of psychological science highlighting the media’s contribution to contagion in mass shootings. I fully agree with her that psychologists need to play a critical role in disseminating psychology for public consumption, particularly in this area and at this point in time. We need to use our science to educate media professionals about the potential for imitation of mass shootings and ways to avert it by downplaying-instead of sensationalizing-these tragedies. When called upon to analyze on air the motivations of a particular mass shooter, perhaps a more helpful, evidence-based approach for psychologists would be to use that opportunity as a platform to emphasize the WHO (2008) guidelines.” (Perrin, Paul B. 2016).

This shows us how the media has outright disregarded any attempts at being a force of good in these tragedies and instead chooses to profit off of the them. What will gain a man more notability in this society? Being a family man filled with virtue and piety or mowing down your peers in 4k?

Update:

“I believe—as sure as I believe anything on this earth—the claim I made IN A LAWSUIT IN FEDERAL COURT in which I alleged, on behalf of the Columbine children, that the Harris boy’s actions, including PARTICULARLY AND ESPECIALLY HIS FINAL ACT OF SUICIDE, were caused or influenced to occur by the antidepressant drugs he was taking.

 

Remarkably enough, within a year or so after I dropped out of this lawsuit and the lawsuit was dismissed by the Federal Judge, IT BECAME PUBLIC INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE THAT CERTAIN OF THESE ANTIDEPRESSANTS DO IN FACT CAUSE SUICIDAL BEHAVIOR, PARTICULARLY IN CHILDREN AND TEENAGERS, AND NOW THIS FACT MUST BE PUT ON THE DRUGS WHEN THEY ARE SOLD OR PRESCRIBED TO CHILDREN. But, of course when I had this lawsuit going, none of this information was public knowledge BUT WAS ALL DENIED by the drug companies. And, one of these days—SOON—when I get a legal comfort level to do so without getting punished by the legal system I intend to BLOW IT OUT ALL STRAIGHT ON THE REAL COLUMBINE TRUTHS”

 

-John W. Decamp