Essay On Mass Shootings

Mass shootings are a huge problem in the United States, but for some reason, political figures or government officials tend to handle these situations as if it’s just a regular crime. There have been 97 mass shootings since 1982, which in total have had 806 fatalities due to these mass shootings. Instead of treating, a mass shooting like it is a casual thing and coming up with all types of different excuses to control how people should feel and see the situation they should be working to make stronger and better gun control laws in order to regulate who can get a hold of these weapons. In the article, “Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, and the Politics of American Firearms,” written by Jonathan M. Metzl and Kenneth T. MacLeish explain the assumptions

Metzl and MacLeish first explain that there is a stereotype to what people usually assume a shooter of a mass shooting looks like and the characteristics that they are likely to have. They state in their article, “Mass shootings in the United States are often framed as the work of loners–unstable, angry White men who never should have had access to firearms” (Metzl & MacLeish 2015, 244). This stereotypical claim is backed up by more stereotypical claims that the United States population has liked to consider is the ideal image of a certain race. Metzl and MacLeish state in the article, “In the 1960s and 1970s, by contrast, many of the men labeled as violent and mentally ill were also, it turned out, Black. And when the potential assailants of a crime were Black, US psychiatric and popular culture frequently blamed “Black Culture” or Black activist politics–not individual, disordered brains–for the threats such men imagined to pose” (2015, 244). It is great how the authors help shape the idea that it is obvious that the United States cultural tries to justify every crime and targets a certain group and labels them in order to control how the population thinks or sees a certain individual because they are not the “normal” American citizen. They help support this idea by providing evidence that shows it has been like this for years before now, it states in the article, “A number of historical documents suggest that racialized and gendered overtones also shaped 1960s-era associations between schizophrenia and gun violence in the United States” (Metzl & MacLeish 2015, 244). All of the supporting evidence helps explain why the society tends to assume that there is a certain type of person to look out for when it comes to crimes or gun-related