There is a growing body of evidence that mass shootings are a viral phenomenon… that they spread like any other infection, by attacking the most vulnerable members of our population. In the case of mass shootings, the most vulnerable tend to be angry, disaffected or isolated men. As with any epidemic, most of those inclined towards committing a mass shooting need some kind of inspiration or spark before they will act… they must be “infected” by the actions of another shooter first.
For the best rundown of the available evidence that I’ve ever read, check out this piece by Malcolm Gladwell, THRESHOLDS OF VIOLENCE.
If the evidence is correct, and I think it’s very hard to argue that it’s not, then the most obvious solution to America’s mass shooting epidemic is the informational equivalent of the COVID lockdowns.
The media must stop reporting on them.
Yeah I know, I might as well ask you to pull an elephant out of your ass. But as solutions go, this one is a lot more likely to work than any Gun Control measure ever proposed (which is probably reason #1 why it would never be tried, but that’s fodder for a whole other post).
And I know exactly what the media would argue… “mass shootings are newsworthy!” But is that really true? What news value does a shooting in Indianapolis have for a news consumer in Los Angeles or Portland or Miami? Literally zero. What mass shootings do have, on the other hand, is a tremendous amount of political proaganda value for a Corporate Media that has become an arm of the Democratic Party.
If you want to stop an epidemic, the first thing you have to do is stop people from getting infected. The only way to stop shooters from getting infected by other shooters is to deny them access to information about other shootings. The Media love to pitch gun control proposals that would have zero effect on gun violence in America because those proposals would restrict the rights of people the Media doesn’t like. Well I don’t much like the Media either, so let’s turn the tables on them and propose a law that would actually work, while simutaneously denying the Media access to one of their favorite sources of ratings and advertiser dollars. The “if it bleeds it leads” approach to cable newsmaking might die along with the mass shooting epidemic as people start to tune the Corporate Media out…
That feels like a win-win to me.