Opting out of the ambulance chase: On school shootings and overreactions

On school shootings

I have my beliefs on gun control, but the cold hard reality is that what I believe on the subject just doesn't matter.

Image Source: pixabay.com; License: CC0, Public Domain

Here in America, we have been having the exact same debate on gun control after every mass shooting since Columbine (and probably before). Whether gun control might, theoretically, help to stop gun violence really makes no difference at all, because in practical terms it is not going to happen here in the US in any time span that makes a difference in the present tense.

As the old cliche says, A definition of insanity is when you keep doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. Similarly, people who are still trying to solve the problem of mass shootings with gun control are pursuing a fool's errand. It has 0 chance of success, and the debate's only significant accomplishment is to raise funds for the political parties (both of them). People who sincerely want to do something now to address the problem of mass killings must start looking somewhere else.

If you want to address the problem of mass killings in 50 years, after society can be persuaded to give up its guns, by all means continue the debate. But what if I'm interested in addressing the problem now? Gun control that matters is simply not feasible in the near term. I guess that 2 or more decades of deeply entrenched debate on the topic should be enough to demonstrate to anyone that gun-control is not coming any time soon. So what can be done to make a difference now? Nothing?

Here are my assumptions:

1. As long as there are disturbed people, we're never going to end mass killings. The best we can realistically hope to do is to reduce their frequency and severity.
2. With the advent of 3D printed weapons, guns will become more accessible, not less.
3. If it's not a gun, it'll be something else.

Against those assumptions, the question is, what can I do, in my own personal sphere of influence?

I don't work in a school or in law enforcement, so it's not likely that I'll be able to have much personal influence on reducing the severity of shootings, but what about their frequency? Can I, personally, do something to reduce the frequency of school shootings? It seems unlikely, but after Parkland, I did some thinking and some reading.

I wondered why mass shootings seem so much more frequent now than they did when I was a kid (although they're actually not), and I wondered what was different. What came immediately to mind is the Internet. So, I had a hunch that many of the school shooters might be driven by a desire for fame, and I ran some searches in Google Schoolar to see what the literature says. One article I found was Contagion in Mass Killings and School Shootings. In this article, I found the following:

...Several past studies have found that media reports of suicides and homicides appear to subsequently increase the incidence of similar events in the community, apparently due to the coverage planting the seeds of ideation in at-risk individuals to commit similar acts....

...We find significant evidence that mass killings involving firearms are incented by similar events in the immediate past. On average, this temporary increase in probability lasts 13 days, and each incident incites at least 0.30 new incidents (p = 0.0015). We also find significant evidence of contagion in school shootings, for which an incident is contagious for an average of 13 days, and incites an average of at least 0.22 new incidents (p = 0.0001)...

So there it is, media coverage may plant seeds of ideation in at-risk individuals. Media coverage of one mass killing may help catalyze another one. Yes, it's just one study, and it's not certain, but this is actionable information - for me, personally.

Accordingly, about two weeks ago, I posted this on my facebook page:

Here's my way of fighting back against all current and future school/mass shooters. IMO, the main factor driving these disturbed people is probably a desire for news coverage, social media fame, and wikipedia immortality. I can't do anything about wikipedia, but to deny them my attention, I will take these steps:

1.) For a period of 2 weeks after an event, I will turn off any news broadcasts that go beyond reporting immediately relevant facts and veer into sensationalism, speculation, or political advocacy. I will also turn off any news broadcasts that mention the perpetrator's name.

2.) On facebook, for a period of 2 weeks after an event, and whether I agree with the post or not, I will apply Facebook's "Snooze for 30 days" feature for any person or site who makes posts that attempt to exploit the emotions that are brought about after a school shooting in an effort to advocate for an already held political position.

No offense to anyone who gets muted, but from now on, I choose not to participate in the disgusting ambulance-chase that follows every one of these events, and also serves to inspire future shooters.

To put it simply, if the mass shooter wants my attention, I am going to do everything I can to make sure that (s)he does not get it, and I certainly will not do anything to bring the person to the attention of my social-media connections.

On overreactions

Image Source: pixabay.com; License: CC0, Public Domain

My facebook feed recently contained the article, Montco HS Students Charged For Releasing Chicken In Hallway. It seems that two seniors at a local high school released a chicken in the school hallway, pandemonium ensued, and now the students have been suspended for 10 days, prohibited from walking in graduation, and charged with disorderly conduct.

Thinking back on some of the antics I saw during my own high school years, this seemed like a gross overreaction. So I followed the link to its source, and found the following:

...The problem was the girls came to the school disguised.They were wearing masks and hoods—leading to two classroom lockdowns, a police response and chaos....

...'We scared kids, we scared a teacher. We put their lives in what they thought was in danger, so yeah I regret it,' senior Emmalyn Huber said.

...'It's not a joke. It's not a prank. We would have locked down the whole school. It would have been an all out lockdown because we had intruders in the building,' Pottsgrove School Superintendent Dr. William Shirk.

And then it made sense. The girls are not being punished because of the chicken. They're being punished because of the school's panicky overreaction to students in black hoodies. So the question is, why did the overreaction happen?

I've got two answers to that question. The first, is a concept that's frequently discussed by Lenore Skenazy, "worst first thinking." A mature thinker does not immediately jump to the conclusion that the worst possible thing that could happen is what's going on, but as Skenazy documents, many people in our society now default to thinking that way.

The second reason is what ties the two subjects of this essay together. The social media ambulance chase that follows every school shooting has conditioned us to believe that school shootings are happening, all the time, everywhere.

In reality, more people are killed in school transportation accidents than by school shootings, but no one panics when we see a school bus. So why panic when we see a student disguised in a black hoodie? I think it's because social media saturation severely warps our perception of the relative risks of these events.

Conclusion

I'm not telling anyone else what to do, I'm just telling you what I'm doing. From now on, the amount of attention that any far-off school shooter (or perpetrator of any other mass killing) gets from me is as close to zero as I can possibly make it. Not because I'm burying my head in the sand, but because - unlike the gun control debate - I think it might actually make a difference. Despite the wall to wall media coverage, these are rare events, and I am no longer going to let them receive a disproportionate share of my valuable attention.

If mass killings are, indeed, contagious, then I'm doing my part to prevent their spread. Additionally, (in my opinion) America was a better place when we weren't all at each others' throats over this unwinnable gun control debate, and America was a better place when a prank was just a prank.

Thank you for your time and attention.

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Steve Palmer is an IT professional with three decades of professional experience in data communications and information systems. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics, a master's degree in computer science, and a master's degree in information systems and technology management. He has been awarded 3 US patents.

Steve is a co-founder of the Steemit's Best Classical Music Facebook page, and the @classical-music steemit curation account.

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