tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/dayton-shooting-74648/articlesDayton shooting – The Conversation2019-08-22T12:35:39Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1218632019-08-22T12:35:39Z2019-08-22T12:35:39ZIncreasing numbers of Americans support gun background checks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/288221/original/file-20190815-136199-17aw7bt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some states have universal background checks for gun purchases.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/gun-wall-rack-rifles-737417563?src=YbJkvlknXzwFEmmxoSE-rA-1-3">Lutsenko_Oleksandr/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the aftermath of the shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, public debate once again turned to what Congress should do to reduce gun violence. </p>
<p>One of the challenges that many policymakers face is understanding the views of the general public. <a href="http://theconversation.com/if-polls-say-people-want-gun-control-why-doesnt-congress-just-pass-it-92569">Policymakers tend to be most concerned</a> about the magnitude and intensity of the opposition to stricter gun regulation. </p>
<p>In late 2016, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pmQf584AAAAJ&hl=en">my research team</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/rhc3.12154">surveyed 1,115 adults</a> twice, six months apart. We discovered that the number of Americans <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.13203">supporting stricter background checks</a> for gun purchases is growing, and it is growing most among people who previously opposed or were neutral about such regulation.</p>
<h2>Views on guns, six months apart</h2>
<p>We asked respondents whether they remembered nine specific acts or attempted acts of violence targeting large numbers of people in the U.S., from the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in 2012 up to the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/09/19/timeline-new-york-new-jersey-bombings/90685308/">bombings in New York and New Jersey in 2016</a>. </p>
<p><iframe id="8TcsV" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/8TcsV/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Five of these events occurred before the first survey; four occurred between the first and second surveys.</p>
<p>We had two theories as to how Americans’ opinions on guns might have changed in the intervening six months.</p>
<p>First, as these violent events continue to occur, the general public might become inured to acts of mass violence, including shootings, and to consider them to be the “new normal.” In this scenario, we would expect support for public policies to address gun violence would diminish. </p>
<p>Alternatively, there might be a cumulative effect, where people eventually get to the point of saying that enough is enough. In this scenario, support for gun-control policies should go up. </p>
<p>We asked about levels of support for, or opposition to, a number of policy proposals, including stricter background checks for all gun purchases, sales bans on assault-style weapons, enhanced airport security and expanded high-tech digital surveillance.</p>
<h2>Who changed their minds</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.people-press.org/2018/10/18/gun-policy-remains-divisive-but-several-proposals-still-draw-bipartisan-support/">As reported in other surveys</a>, U.S. support for stricter backgrounds checks is high.</p>
<p>Federal law currently requires only commercial purchasers of guns to be cleared through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Private sales of guns and sales of guns at gun shows are not covered by the federal law, although <a href="https://lawcenter.giffords.org/gun-laws/policy-areas/background-checks/universal-background-checks/">15 states have stricter requirements</a>. Stricter background checks would include requiring the buyers of all guns to be cleared before a purchase could be completed.</p>
<p>In our first survey, a little over 70% of the people said they “strongly supported” or “somewhat supported” stricter checks. In the second survey, six months later, that number rose to nearly 75%. </p>
<p>We saw a remarkable amount of stability in people’s views on background checks. Nearly two-thirds of the people interviewed reported the exact same views at both points in time.</p>
<p>But some people did change their opinions. Between the first and second survey, there was a clear tendency for individual people’s positions to move incrementally toward supporting background checks.</p>
<p>Among those who “strongly opposed” stricter checks, only 46% still strongly opposed them six months later. </p>
<p><iframe id="lU0Qd" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/lU0Qd/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Of the 118 people who strongly or somewhat opposed stricter background checks in the first survey, over 20% changed to say they were supportive six months later. Of those who neither supported nor opposed background checks at first, a third shifted to be supportive.</p>
<p>Very few people reported views moving toward being more opposed. Of the 804 people who supported background checks at first, only about 10% shifted to neither support nor oppose, or to oppose, six months later. </p>
<h2>Shootings’ cumulative effect</h2>
<p>Clearly, support for stricter background checks has increased over the six months we studied, even among many of those who might have been previously uneasy with such checks. </p>
<p>This pattern is reflected in changes toward other policy options, including banning assault-style weapons, although background checks have gained the most support. </p>
<p>Our work offers a glimpse into how individuals in the U.S. have changed their opinions on gun control. Many surveys capture a moment in time, but don’t show who is changing or in what direction.</p>
<p>Based on the information from this study, there would seem to be something of a cumulative effect gradually moving people toward realizing the need for policy intervention. </p>
<p>Strong public support for gun legislation has not been translated into congressional action in the past. Evidence presented here and in national polls suggests that support has never been stronger than it is right now. Of course, whether these changes usher in a new era of efforts in Congress or the states to stem gun violence remains to be seen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121863/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kent E. Portney receives funding from National Science Foundation, US Department of Agriculture, Texas OneGulf program. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carol L. Goldsmith receives funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Environmental Health Scoemce, the US Department of Agriculture, and the Texas OneGulf program.</span></em></p>Evidence suggests that support for stricter background checks has increased and opposition has softened.Kent E. Portney, Professor and Director, Texas A&M UniversityCarol L. Goldsmith, Assistant Director and Senior Research Associate in the Institute for Science, Technology and Public Policy, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1215332019-08-07T15:28:49Z2019-08-07T15:28:49ZEl Paso: we need to examine the role masculinity plays in mass shootings<p>The United States is a world leader in mass shootings. In less than 24 hours, two mass shootings by single individuals, have left dozens of people dead. Meanwhile, ongoing gun violence in cities such as Chicago over the same weekend saw <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/05/chicago-gun-violence-bloody-weekend">seven people shot and killed and 46 wounded</a>.</p>
<p>Much of the attention within the US and globally has now centred on the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas. There, a lone white gunman killed 22 people and wounded more than 20 more. It has led to discussions about far-right white nationalism as a form of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/08/how-can-fbi-fight-far-right-extremism-ideology/595435/">domestic terrorism</a>. This attention is understandable, given the El Paso perpetrator’s stated anti-Hispanic racism in a written document he posted online. His justification for killing resonates with a series of other racist shootings by white nationalists, including at a church in Charleston and a synagogue in Pittsburgh.</p>
<p>However, while white nationalism can explain the motivation for several mass shootings in the US, it does not underpin numerous others. For example, it does not appear to be a factor in the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting in which 58 people were murdered and hundreds more wounded. Nor was white nationalism a factor in the slaughter of 26 children and adults in Sandy Hook in 2012.</p>
<p>Other than the use of a gun, the common denominator linking all such attacks is glaringly obvious and yet worryingly absent from much of our discussion about gun violence. This common denominator applies to all but three of the more than 150 mass shootings in which four or more people in the US were killed in public <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/guns-and-masculinity/">between 1966 and earlier this year</a>. The perpetrators are not all white nationalists, but they are almost all men.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/BgTxz8jFGOf/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Feminist scholars have long focused on men’s violence against women, tackling issues such as rape, sexual harassment, date rape, stalking, online abuse, incest, domestic violence and murder. They argue that behaviours associated with masculinity are not necessarily natural, but are learned. This has led to important theorising about the negative effects of “hegemonic masculinity”, which pressures men to adopt a hyper-masculine, heterosexual and anti-feminine gender identity and implies that they are not a real man if they do not. “Toxic masculinity”, meanwhile, encourages men to resort to anger, aggression and violence against women, other men and children – and, indeed, the planet itself.</p>
<p>After the Columbine High School massacre, feminist writer Gloria Steinem considered the relationship of gender to other identity variables. She argued that mass shootings were a “supremacy crime” committed by men <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utTvb-8jhHQ">“addicted to power and superiority”</a> and seeking to establish their own dominance.</p>
<p>The desire to establish dominance, particularly over women, is evident in the rise of the “incel” movement, a largely misogynistic online community of heterosexual young men raging against women for their sexless lives. At least two mass killers in recent years identified as incels and some in the community have portrayed the first incel-motivated perpetrator as <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43892189">heroic</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Home-Grown-Domestic-Violence-Turns-Terrorists/dp/1787476049/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=smith+homegrown&amp;qid=1565124822&amp;s=gateway&amp;sr=8-1">Joan Smith</a> connects men’s histories of domestic violence to terrorist acts, including mass shootings, illustrating that men who abuse their loved ones have fewer qualms about carrying out violence against others.</p>
<p>It’s all too convenient to point to mental illness, or even video games, as the main reasons for mass shootings, particularly when the perpetrators are white men as in <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/trump-blames-mental-illness-video-games-and-social-media-for-mass-shootings-11778094">the majority of cases</a>. Such an approach obscures the over representation of men in the ranks of mass shooters. </p>
<p>We need a sustained discussion about the intersection of masculinity, whiteness and American gun violence. That would involve a frank discussion about the masculinised nature of American gun culture and wider popular culture. These include notions that part of being a real man involves owning a gun and that an acceptable means for men to respond to perceived grievances in life, whether personal or political or some combination of the two, is through <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a18207600/mass-shootings-male-entitlement-toxic-masculinity/">violence</a>. </p>
<p>There are practical steps available. Masculinity should be part of the conversation when it comes to looking at factors that lead to violent extremists. More resources also need to go into encouraging men full of rage to seek help instead of submerging such feelings until they erupt externally. Finally, men need to publicly and explicitly condemn male violence.</p>
<p>In this vein, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/gavin-newsom-gun-violence-gender-toxic-masculinity-domestic-violence_n_5d496721e4b0d291ed069141">comments by the governor of California, Gavin Newsom</a> after El Paso and Dayton, linking men to mass shootings and pondering the problematic messages boys are given in the United States, represent a step in the right direction. When any man is taught to value “<a href="http://www.rabble.ca/books/reviews/2017/07/radical-handmaids-tale-reproductive-justice-began-parliament-hill">power, dominance, aggression, over empathy, care and collaboration</a>”, he becomes the deadliest weapon of all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121533/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christabelle Sethna receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steve Hewitt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Not all mass shooters are white supremacists, but they are nearly all men.Steve Hewitt, Senior Lecturer in the Department of History, University of BirminghamChristabelle Sethna, Professor, Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1214712019-08-07T13:37:06Z2019-08-07T13:37:06ZMass shootings aren’t growing more common – and evidence contradicts common stereotypes about the killers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287111/original/file-20190806-84210-n7l4h2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=474%2C7%2C4266%2C3233&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Just like the memorials after a shooting, some myths are bound to appear.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Texas-Mall-Shooting/14b0fdfd31a74d3bb9cf403b4af69cf9/1/0">AP Photo/John Locher</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When 22 people were killed in El Paso, Texas, and nine more were killed in Dayton, Ohio, roughly 12 hours later, responses to the tragedy included many of the same myths and stereotypes Americans have grown used to hearing in the wake of a mass shooting.</p>
<p>As part of my work as a psychology researcher, I study mass homicides, as well as society’s reaction to them. A lot of bad information can follow in the wake of such emotional events; clear, data-based discussions of mass homicides can get lost among political narratives.</p>
<p>I’d like to clear up four common misconceptions about mass homicides and who commits them, based on the current state of research.</p>
<h2>Violent video games cause mass homicides?</h2>
<p>By Monday morning after these latest shootings, <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?463254-1/president-trump-calls-nation-condemn-racism-bigotry-white-supremacy-mass-shootings">President Donald Trump</a> along with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/sports/trump-violent-video-games-studies.html">other Republican politicians</a> had linked violent video games to mass shootings.</p>
<p>I’ll admit my surprise, since only last year the Trump administration convened a School Safety Commission which studied this issue, among many others. I myself testified, and the commission <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/documents/school-safety/school-safety-report.pdf">ultimately did not conclude</a> there was sufficient evidence to link games and media to criminal violence.</p>
<p>Long-term studies of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01069-0">youth</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-017-0646-z">consistently</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000035">find</a> that violent games are not a risk factor for youth violence anywhere from one to eight years later. And no less than the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-1448.ZS.html">U.S. Supreme Court</a> declared in 2011 that scientific studies had failed to link violent games to serious aggression in kids.</p>
<p>A 2017 public policy statement by the American Psychological Association’s <a href="https://div46amplifier.com/2017/06/12/news-media-public-education-and-public-policy-committee/">media psychology and technology division</a> specifically recommended politicians should stop linking violent games to mass shootings. It’s time to lay this myth to rest.</p>
<h2>Mass shooters are male white supremacists?</h2>
<p>Early reports suggest that the El Paso shooter was a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/08/04/whats-inside-hate-filled-manifesto-linked-el-paso-shooter/">white racist concerned about Latino immigration</a>. Other shooters, such as the perpetrator of the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/03/15/new-zealand-christchurch-mosque-shootings-who-brenton-tarrant/3172550002/">Christchurch, New Zealand</a> attack, have also been white supremacists.</p>
<p>Overall, though, the ethnic composition of the group of all mass shooters in the U.S. is <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/476456/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-shooter-s-race/">roughly equivalent</a> to the American population.</p>
<p><iframe id="A2vll" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/A2vll/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Hateful people tend to be attracted to hateful ideologies. Some shootings, such as the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/dallas-police-ambush/protests-spawn-cities-across-u-s-over-police-shootings-black-n605686">2016 shooting</a> of police officers in Dallas, were reportedly motivated by anti-white hatred. Other shooters, such as the 2015 <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/wife-calif-shooting-victim-believes-husband-targeted-article-1.2458790">San Bernardino</a> husband and wife perpetrator team, have espoused other hateful ideas such as radical Islam.</p>
<p>Most mass homicide perpetrators <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/09/14/what-do-most-mass-shooters-have-in-common-hint-it-isnt-politics-video-games-or-religion/">don’t proclaim</a> any allegiance to a <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Murder-United-States-Ronald-Holmes/dp/0139343083/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=Mass+Murder+in+the+United+States&qid=1565110526&s=gateway&sr=8-4">particular ideology</a> at all. </p>
<p>Of course, mass homicides in other nations – such as several <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/25/tokyo-knife-attack-stabbing-sagamihara">deadly</a> <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/what-we-know-about-the-knife-attack-in-kawasaki-japan.html">knife</a> attacks in Japan – don’t involve U.S. race issues.</p>
<p>As far as gender, it’s true that most mass homicide perpetrators are male. A minority of shooters <a href="https://www.crimetraveller.org/2017/04/amy-bishop-university-professor-mass-murder/">are female</a>, and they may <a href="https://time.com/4375398/andrea-yates-15-years-drown-children/">target their own families</a>. </p>
<h2>Mental illness definitely is or is not to blame?</h2>
<p>Whether mental illness is or is not related to mass shootings – or criminal violence more broadly – is a nuanced question. Frankly, proponents on both sides often get this wrong by portraying the issue as clear-cut.</p>
<p>As far back as 2002, a <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/preventingattacksreport.pdf">U.S. Secret Service report</a> based on case studies and interviews with surviving shooters identified mental illness – typically either psychosis or suicidal depression – as very common among mass homicide perpetrators.</p>
<p>As for violence more broadly, mental illness, such as <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0016311">psychosis</a> as well as a <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-010-9610-x">mixture of depression with antisocial traits</a>, is a risk factor for violent behavior. </p>
<p>Some people suggest mental illness is completely unrelated to crime, but that claim tends to rely on mangled statistics. For instance, I’ve <a href="https://www.amhca.org/blogs/joel-miller/2017/10/03/gun-violence-and-mental-illnessmyths-and-evidence-based-facts">seen the suggestion</a> that individuals with mental illness account for just 5% of violent crimes. However, that assertion is based on research like one <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1557975/">Swedish study that limited mental illness to psychosis only</a>, which is experienced by about <a href="https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/schizophrenia.shtml">1% or less</a> of the population. If 1% of people commit 5% of crimes, that suggests psychosis elevates risk of crime. </p>
<p>It’s also important to point out that the vast majority of people with mental illness do not commit violent crimes. For instance, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291714000695">in one study</a>, about 15% of people with schizophrenia had committed violent crimes, as compared to 4% of a group of people without schizophrenia. Although this clearly identifies the increase in risk, it also highlights that the majority of people with schizophrenia had not committed violent crimes. It’s important not to stigmatize the mentally ill, which may reduce their incentive to seek treatment.</p>
<p>So improving access to mental health services would benefit a whole range of people and, by coincidence, occasionally bring treatment to someone at risk of committing violence. But focusing only on mental health is unlikely to put much of a dent in societal violence.</p>
<h2>Mass homicides are becoming more frequent?</h2>
<p>Mass homicides get a lot of news coverage which keeps our focus on the frequency of their occurrence. Just how frequent is sometimes muddled by shifting definitions of mass homicide, and confusion with other terms such as active shooter.</p>
<p>But using standard definitions, most data suggest that the prevalence of mass shootings has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1088767913510297">stayed</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1891/0886-6708.VV-D-16-00039">fairly</a> <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/04/mass-shootings-more-deadly-frequent-research-215678">consistent</a> over the past few decades.</p>
<p><iframe id="Wg9JE" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Wg9JE/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>To be sure, the U.S. has experienced many mass homicides. Even stability might be depressing given that <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/421900-crime-murder-rates-drop-in-big-cities">rates of other violent crimes have declined</a> precipitously in the U.S. over the past 25 years. Why mass homicides have stayed stagnant while other homicides have plummeted in frequency is a question worth asking.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, it does not appear that the U.S. is awash in an epidemic of such crimes, at least comparing to previous decades going back to the 1970s.</p>
<p>Mass homicides are horrific tragedies and society must do whatever is possible to understand them fully in order to prevent them. But people also need to separate the data from the myths and the social, political and moral narratives that often form around crime.</p>
<p>Only through dispassionate consideration of good data will society understand how best to prevent these crimes.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121471/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher J. Ferguson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mentally ill, white supremacist video game-playing men are pushing rates of mass homicide ever higher in the US? The real data is more nuanced than common misperceptions suggest.Christopher J. Ferguson, Professor of Psychology, Stetson University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.