Media Influence On Gun Violence

Media’s Influence on the Perceptions of Gun Violence
The media influences the public’s perception on events and the way media covers a situation will influence people’s overall ideas on the topic. Gun violence is a pressing issue worldwide but especially in the United States, and other causes of gun violence besides serious mental illness or SMI are not being addressed by the media, including widespread availability of guns in the United States. There are many factors that contribute to the high amounts of gun violence in the U.S., yet the media often blames SMI. Media’s disproportional coverage of gun violence and its correlation to mental illness has caused the public to overly associate gun violence with the mentally ill, while in reality
Gun regulations have been established but vary from state to state, and the 2nd amendment protects many rights regarding gun possession. A shift in focus needs to occur from dangerous people to dangerous policies that allow for these events to happen. In the study of SRI and gun violence correlations by Psychologist researchers from American Journal of Public Health suggest that the public is often exposed to the issue of SMI and gun violence in the context of mass shooting. From 1997 to 2012, 51% of news media coverage about SMI and gun violence occurred in the 3 years encompassing recent mass shootings: 2007 with Virginia Tech, 2011 with Tucson, and 2012 with Aurora and Newtown (McGinty et. al.) It was discovered that 35% of news stories about SMI and gun violence from 1997 to 2012 occurred in the 2-week periods following these 4 mass shootings, suggesting a very limited window of time in which the issue of SMI and gun violence is at the forefront of the public’s agenda (McGinty et. al.). As well as in 2011 commentary in JAMA, an international peer-reviewed general medical journal, Lawrence Gostin a Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University and Professor of Public Health at the Johns Hopkins University, argued that to reduce gun violence in the United States, policies should “target the “dangerous weapons” used in all gun crime, not “dangerous people” with SMI, most of whom are not in fact violent” (McGinty et. al). Every day, 306 people in America are shot in murders, assaults, suicides and suicide attempts, unintentional shootings, and police intervention (McGinty et. al). When the cause of gun violence is based around framing “dangerous people” it implies that responsibility for gun violence lies with a select group of individuals with SMI, while more accurately placing the blame on “dangerous-weapons” implies that responsibility lies with