By: Billy Beerslugger
In the last month or so about 47 people have been shot and killed in mass shootings by multiple gun persons. American media picks up on this stuff and runs with it for days at a time in each case. Updates, bio’s, theorizing, re-enacting, interviews and opinions litter the airways.
Now don’t get me wrong, it is terrible and a tragedy when American lives are lost for no reason. I am in no way a fan of senseless violence. However, do I really need to know about this? Do i need to know 5 people were shot 7 states away from me by a crazed gunman? Yes I’m guessing it is important to alert the people occupying the town it occured in about this situation, but why the hell does America need to know. I would say in a vast majority of these cases, thats exactly what the gunperson wants, national recognition. Shoot a bunch of people, go out in a blaze of glory and get your picture plastered on every news station in the country as well as everyone knowing your full (including middle) name. Forever known as a crazy badass dude that shot as many people as he could before shooting himself or getting taken out by SWAT team.
All this oversaturated coverage of these events only serves to invite more and more of these tragedies. Some misguided person see’s this crap on TV and decides they will do the same thing. Makes me think of when the government shuts down some illegal file sharing site, 10 more pop up and thousands more people check out illegal file sharing sites because they saw them on TV. Effectively defeating the purpose of what the government set out to do.
So why do people need to know about a mass shooting? Why is there incessant mass media coverage of it? Do people enjoy seeing other people in pain? I certainly don’t unless it’s the show Intervention (my guilty pleasure). Is it empathy? Are they afraid something like this could happen in their town? Well I’ve got news for those people. You could walk out of your house and slip and fall and die. Every time you get into a car you run a risk. What are you going to do not go out and live in a paralyzing fear of the outside world?
Yes these events are news worthy but are not all consuming. There’s other stuff going on in the world. In third world countries 10 people being shot doesn’t mean shit. It happens all the time. People die.. life goes on.
So again, I’m not saying it’s not a terrible tragedy that people were shot for no good reason, I just don’t want to be inundated with the details of it. Tell me it happened and move on.