She found Forbes face down in the street in August 2023, two weeks before he had planned to move away from the empty storefronts, boarded-up houses, and poverty that make this one of the most troubled places in the nation.

Naketra Guy thought about how her son overcame losing his father at age 4 and was the glue of the family. She called him “humble” and “respectful,” a leader in the community and on the football field, where he shined.

Yet he could not outrun the grim statistics of his hometown. Bogalusa posts some of the worst health outcomes and poverty in Louisiana, a state that routinely ranks among the worst nationally in both. And Bogalusa has endured another indicator of poor public health: high levels of gun violence.

Since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, gun violence has shattered any sense of peace or progress here. Louisiana suffers the nation’s second-highest firearm death rate — and Bogalusa, a predominantly Black community with 10,000 residents, has seen dozens of shootings and a violent crime rate approaching twice the national average.

A nearby team refused to play football at Bogalusa High School in fall 2022, citing safety concerns.

Bogalusa’s mayor, Tyrin Truong, was elected in 2022 at age 23 on his promises to fix entrenched challenges: few youth programs and good jobs, and perpetual crime and blight.

“I ran for mayor because I got sick of seeing our city painted as mini-New Orleans,” he said, “due to the high levels of youth gun violence.”

In January, the Louisiana State Police arrested Truong, accusing him of soliciting a prostitute and participating in a drug trafficking ring that allegedly used illicit proceeds to buy firearms. He has said he is innocent. “I still haven’t been formally arraigned,” he told KFF Health News in late July, “and I haven’t been charged with anything.”

Every year tens of thousands of Americans — one every few minutes — are killed by gun violence on the scale of a public health epidemic.

Many thousands more are left to recover from severe injuries, crushing medical debt, and the mental health toll of losing loved ones.

Most headlines focus on America’s urban centers, but the numbers also reflect the growth of gun violence in places like Bogalusa, a pinprick of a town 75 miles north of New Orleans. In 2020, the gun violence death rate for rural communities was 40% higher than in large metropolitan areas, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Firearms are the No. 1 killer of children in the U.S., and no group suffers more than young Black people. More Black boys and men ages 15 to 24 in 2023 were killed in gun homicides than from the next 15 leading causes of deaths combined. Though overall U.S. homicides dropped sharply after the pandemic ended, adolescent gun deaths climbed even higher in the years after, according to research by Jonathan Jay, an associate professor in the School of Public Health at Boston University.

“It has all the markers of an epidemic. It is a major driver of death and disability,” Jay said. “Gun violence does not get the attention it deserves. It is underrecognized because it disproportionately impacts Black and brown people.”

Rather than bolstering efforts to save lives, federal, state, and local government officials have undermined them. KFF Health News undertook an examination of gun violence since the pandemic, a period when firearm death rates surged. Reporters reviewed government reports and academic research and interviewed dozens of health policy experts, activists, and victims or their relatives. They reviewed corporate earnings reports from gun manufacturers and data on the industry’s donations to politicians.

In polling published in 2023 by KFF, more than half of Americans said they or a family member had been impacted by gun violence such as by seeing a shooting or being threatened, injured, or killed with a gun.

American politicians and regulators have put in place laws and practices that have helped enrich firearm and ammunition manufacturers — which tout $91 billion in economic impact — even as gun violence has terrorized neighborhoods already damaged by white flight, systemic disinvestment, and other forms of racial discrimination.

President Donald Trump championed gun rights on the campaign trail and has received millions from the National Rifle Association, to whose members he promised, “No one will lay a finger on your firearms.” His administration has rolled back efforts under President Joe Biden to address the rise in gun violence.

Emboldened in his second term, Trump is pushing to allow more guns in schools, weaken federal oversight of the gun industry, override state and local gun laws, permit sales without background checks, and cut funding for violence intervention.

Trump ordered the attorney general to review all Biden administration actions that “purport to promote safety but may have impinged on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.”

The Biden administration said “a historic spike in homicides” during the pandemic took its greatest toll on racially segregated and high-poverty neighborhoods.

Black youths in four major cities were 100 times as likely as white ones to experience a firearm assault, research showed. Gun suicides reached an all-time high, and for the first time the firearm suicide rate among older Black teens surpassed that of older white teens.

In Bogalusa, the pandemic gun violence spread fear. Among the victims killed were a 15-year-old attending a birthday party and a 24-year-old nationally known musician. Thirteen people were injured at a memorial for a man who himself had been shot. Residents said neighbors stopped sitting in their yards because of stray bullets.

Researchers say communities like Bogalusa endure a collective trauma that shatters their sense of safety. Two years after Forbes’ death, his mother says that when she leaves home her surviving children worry that she, too, might get shot.

Repercussions from the surge will last years, researchers said: Exposure to shootings increases risk for post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, suicide, depression, substance abuse, and poor school performance for survivors and those who live near them.

“We saw gun violence exposure go up for every group of children except white children, in the cities we studied,” Jay said. “Limits on government funding into gun violence research may stop us from ever knowing exactly why.”

Politics of Pain

The year before Forbes died in Bogalusa, Biden signed into law the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, considered the most sweeping firearm legislation in decades.

In a matter of months, Trump has systematically dismantled key provisions.

Efforts to regulate guns have long proven ineffective against the power of political and business interests that fill the streets with weapons. In 2020, the number of guns manufactured annually in the U.S. hit 11.3 million, more than double a decade earlier, according to the federal government. In 2022, the United States had nearly 78,000 licensed gun dealers, more than its combined number of McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, and Subway locations, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group.

The Biden administration announced in 2021 it would attempt to reduce gun violence by adopting a “zero tolerance” policy toward firearm dealers who committed violations such as failing to run a required background check or selling to someone prohibited from buying a gun.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, which licenses gun dealers, has the authority to enforce laws meant to prevent illegal gun sales. In issuing an executive order, the Trump administration declared that, under Biden, the agency targeted “mom-and-pop shop small businesses who made innocent paperwork errors.”

From October 2010 to February 2022, the agency conducted more than 111,000 inspections, recommending revocation of a dealer’s license only 589 times, about 0.5% of cases, an inspector general’s report said. Even when it cited serious violations, the ATF rarely shut dealers down.

ATF leaders told the inspector general’s office that recommendations for license revocations increased after Biden’s zero-tolerance policy was implemented. In April, the Trump administration repealed it.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy last year declared firearm violence a public health crisis. Within weeks of Trump’s inauguration, his administration removed the advisory. Of the 15 leading U.S. causes of death, firearm injuries received less research funding from the National Institutes of Health for each person who died than all but poisoning and falls, according to an analysis in 2024 by Brady, an anti-gun violence organization. Trump is trying to cut that funding, too.

Trump’s Department of Justice abruptly cut 373 grants in April for projects worth about $820 million, with a large share from gun violence intervention.

“We are going to lose a generation of community violence prevention folks,” said Volkan Topalli, a gun violence researcher at Georgia State University. “People are going to die, I’m sorry to say, but that is the bleak truth of this.”

Asked about its policies, the White House did not address questions about public health considerations around gun violence.

“Illegal violence of any sort is a crime issue, and President Trump has been clear since Day One that he is committed to Making America Safe Again by empowering law enforcement to uphold law and order,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said.

Trump administration officials “want safer streets and less violence,” Topalli said. “They are hurting their cause.”

Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine professor who directs the violence prevention program at the University of California-Davis, was among the first in the nation to consider guns and violence as a public health issue. He said race plays a significant role in perceptions about gun violence.

“People look at the demographic risk for firearm homicide and depending on the demographics of the people in the audience, I can see the transformation in their faces,” Wintemute said. “It’s like they’re saying, ‘Not my people, not my problem.’”

Eroding Gun Restrictions

Trump’s incursions against public health efforts to contain gun violence are backed by lobbying power.

Firearm industry advocacy groups made millions of dollars in political donations in recent years, mostly to conservative causes and Republican candidates. That includes $1.4 million to Trump, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks campaign finance data.

The assassination of civil rights icon the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. helped lead to the passage of the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, which imposed stricter licensing rules and outlawed the sale of firearms and ammunition to felons.

While it remains the law of the land, over time, federal and state government actions have significantly weakened its protections.

Most states now allow people to carry concealed weapons without a permit or background check, even though research suggests the practice can increase the risk of firearm homicides.

In Louisiana, Democratic former Gov. John Bel Edwards, in office from 2016 to 2024, vetoed a bill that would have allowed people to carry concealed firearms without a permit.

Elected in 2023, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed a law to allow any person over age 18 to conceal-carry without a permit.

The Trump administration has created a task force to implement his executive order to end most gun regulations and which would allow more people with criminal convictions, including for domestic abuse, to own guns.

Figures vary, but some researchers estimate as many as 500 million guns circulate in the U.S. Sales reached record highs during the pandemic and publicly traded firearm and ammunition companies saw profits jump.

Donald Trump Jr. this summer joined the board of GrabAGun, an online gun retailer that went public in July under the stock ticker PEW. In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the company, which markets guns to people ages 18 to 44, cited “gun violence prevention and legislative advocacy organizations that oppose sales of firearms and ammunition” as threats to its sales growth.

Dave Workman, a gun rights advocate with the Second Amendment Foundation, said firearms are not to blame for the surge in pandemic shootings.

“Bad guys are going to do what bad guys are going to do regardless of the law,” Workman said. “Taking away gun rights is not going to reduce crime.”

David Yamane, a Wake Forest University sociology professor and national authority on guns, said the U.S. firearm debate is complex and the industry is often “painted with too broad a brush.”

Most guns will never be used to kill anyone, he said. Americans tend to buy more guns during times of unrest, Yamane added: “It’s part of the American tradition. Guns are seen as a legitimate tool for defending yourself.”

‘A Low Level of Hope’

Once called “the Magic City,” Bogalusa has become a grim symbol of deindustrialization.

Bogalusa emerged as Black people formed their own communities in the time of Jim Crow racial segregation at the turn of the 20th century.

Racism concentrated Black people in neighborhoods that became epicenters of poor health, reflected in high rates of cancer, asthma, chronic stress, preterm births, pregnancy-related complications — and, over recent decades, firearm violence.

Thousands flocked to Bogalusa after the Great Southern Lumber Company built one of the world’s biggest sawmills, establishing Bogalusa as a company town. Racial tensions soon followed.

Members of the local Deacons for Defense and Justice gained national attention in the 1960s for protecting civil rights organizers from the Ku Klux Klan, a hate group that burned houses and churches, terrorizing and killing Black people.

As the mill changed hands over the decades, Bogalusa’s fortunes slid. In the mid-20th century, the population surpassed 20,000, but it is now about half that.

International Paper, a Fortune 500 company based in Tennessee, runs the mill as a containerboard factory, employing about 650 people. In 2021, the state announced incentives for the company that included a $500,000 tax break, saying the move would help bring “prosperity.”

Businesses remain boarded up along the main drag. Houses still bear damage from Hurricane Katrina, and many streets are eerily quiet.

Nearly 1 in 3 people in Bogalusa live in poverty — 2½ times the national average.

Bogalusa’s violent gun crime rate reached 646.1 per 100,000 people in 2022, higher than Louisiana’s and 1.7 times the national one, according to the nonprofit Equal Justice USA, citing FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data.

In many rural towns across the South, “there is a level of desperation that is more apparent” than in other parts of the U.S., said Luke Shaefer, a University of Michigan professor of social justice and public policy.

“They don’t have the same infrastructure to have robust social services. People are like, ‘What are my life chances?’” Shaefer said. “People feel like there is nothing that can be done. There is a low level of hope.”

Missed Opportunities

Mayor Truong lamented the violence in Bogalusa after Forbes was killed, writing on Facebook, “When are we as a community going to come together and decide enough is enough?”

The federal government had offered one path forward.

The Biden administration provided billions of dollars to local governments through the American Rescue Plan Act during the pandemic. Biden urged them to deploy money to community violence intervention programs, shown to reduce homicides by as much as 60%.

A handful of cities seized the opportunity, but most did not. Bogalusa has received $4.25 million in ARPA funds since 2021. None appears to have gone toward violence prevention.

The Louisiana legislative auditor, Michael Waguespack, found that Bogalusa used nearly $500,000 for employee bonuses, which his report said may have violated state law. In some cases, the report says, payments were not tied to work performed.

Bogalusa officials did not respond to a public records request from KFF Health News seeking detailed information about its ARPA money.

Former Mayor Wendy O’Quin-Perrette, who served from 2015 through early 2023, told Waguespack in a June 2024 letter that the city used ARPA money to improve streets and pay the bonuses. “We would not have done it without being sure it was allowed,” she said.

O’Quin-Perrette did not respond to requests for comment.

In a 2023 letter to Waguespack, O’Quin-Perrette’s successor, Truong, wrote that Bogalusa officials didn’t know how the federal money was spent. When he took office, Truong alleged, officials discovered “tens of thousands of dollars of checks and cash” stashed “in various drawers and on desks” in city offices.

Truong defended his stewardship of ARPA funds, saying that about $1 million remained when he assumed office but that the money was needed for more urgent sewer infrastructure repairs. “I wish we could have invested more, invested any money in gun violence prevention efforts,” he said.

In an interview, Truong said the city has been “intentional” about bringing down gun violence, including through a summer jobs program. He pointed to statistics that show homicides decreased from nine in 2022 to two in 2024. “If you keep them busy, they won’t have time to do anything else,” he said.

Asked about his January arrest, Truong said he has political enemies.

“I’m the only Democrat in a very red part of the state, and, you know, I’ve made a lot of changes at City Hall, and that ticks people off,” Truong told KFF Health News. He said that he ended long-standing city contracts with local businesspeople. “When you’re shaking up power structures, you become a target.”

Josie Alexander, a Louisiana-based senior strategist for Equal Justice USA, said city officials missed an opportunity when they didn’t use ARPA funds for gun violence prevention. “The sad thing is people here can now see that money was coming in,” she said. “But it just wasn’t used the way it needed to be.”

‘Too Much Trouble Here’

Truong said the city is still reeling from the pandemic spike in violent crime. He said he was at Bogalusa High School’s homecoming football game in 2022 when one teen shot another. Shots rang out, Truong said, and he grabbed his 3-month-old son and “laid in the bleachers.”

“It’s not a foreign topic to hardly anybody in town, whether you’ve heard the gunshots in the distance, whether you have attended a funeral of somebody who passed due to gun violence,” he said. Many still grapple with trauma.

In December 2022, Khlilia Daniels said, she hosted a birthday party for her teenage niece, praying no one would bring a gun.

The hosts checked guests for weapons, she said.

Yet gunfire erupted, Daniels said. Three teens were shot, including 15-year-old Ronié Taylor, who died, according to police.

“When someone you know is killed, you never forget,” said Daniels, 32, who held Taylor until emergency responders arrived.

Tajdryn Forbes was planning his future when he was killed, likely because of a dispute that started on social media over lyrics in a rap song, Guy said.

In a Facebook post in January, Bogalusa police said they had arrested someone in connection with Forbes’ killing. Authorities had previously announced the arrest of a teen in connection with the homicide.

Forbes had been a high school football standout, like his late father, Charles Forbes Jr., who played semipro. When Forbes scored a touchdown, he would look to the sky to honor his dad.

The school praised Forbes for his senior baseball season in a social media post: “This young man makes a difference on our campus and on the field with his strong character.”

When hopes for a college football scholarship did not pan out, Forbes worked as a deckhand for a marine transportation company. He saved money, looking forward to moving to Slidell, a suburb of New Orleans.

“He would always say, ‘There’s too much trouble here’” in Bogalusa, Guy recalled.

The post Guns, Race, and Profit: The Pain of America’s Other Epidemic appeared first on Medika Life.

How could kids not be affected by this and other factors, such as the disruption in schooling caused by the pandemic? The crisis was coming, but policymakers never saw it.

“More than 9 million children faced hunger in 2021. That’s 1 in 8 kids at risk for hunger.” In a country that is supposed to be the richest in the world, we have hungry children who may get one meal a day at school, and politicians want to end these programs.

A hungry child is not only unconscionable, but it is also damaging to that child’s health and future, as well as the health of this nation and the world. Children who don’t get enough food grow up with a wide range of physical and mental problems. One of the damaging effects is on their intellectual ability to function fully in school and in our world after school. The brain, lacking adequate protein in particular, does not develop normally; intellectual deficits are the result. Want low IQ kids? Don’t feed them.

What we are seeing now isn’t limited to hunger but a much wider set of factors that are, increasingly, leading to suicidality in kids and teens. Policies failed the children here and abroad, and things are getting worse. Parents are reaching out to a system that is ill-equipped to help them.

Many children do not receive mental health care, although they have a significant need for it. Access to care is one cause of this. One in three youth do not receive the care, even in states where access to juvenile mental health services is the greatest.

The percentage of young adults (18 to 25) who reported having an unmet need for mental health treatment increased from 5.1% in 2015 to 12.7% in 2018.

Our children may not get mental health treatment because there is a stigma around mental illness, they don’t know about the resources that are out there, and there aren’t enough mental health specialists. There can be differences in access to care depending on race, ethnicity, wealth, and region. It’s critical to remove these obstacles so that kids who require mental health care can get it.

Children and teens with major emotional disturbances and their families are the focus of programs like the Children’s Mental Health Initiative, which aims to improve mental health outcomes. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry have declared a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health, as has the Children’s Hospital Association, highlighting the demand for more resources and attention for this problem.

But attention without funding and programs doesn’t provide immediate relief for these kids. What do we do in the interim? How do we repair the tattered web of mental health services that exist now and ensure it is sturdy enough for future needs?

The post Guns Kill Kids But Policies Push the Mental Health Crisis in the US appeared first on Medika Life.

Nevertheless, six months ago the presidents of the colleges and universities in the Washington, D.C. region charged our organization, the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area, with bringing together the best and brightest researchers across our institutions.  We came together for months of meetings and workings groups seeking to identify the potential solutions to reducing gun violence that showed the most promise.  To my surprise, we were able to find a great deal of common ground – although not without continuing areas of reasonable debate.

Gun violence itself is often misunderstood as focusing on mass shooting events, which themselves can be defined in different ways.  While those events are terrifying and receive tremendous coverage, far more people in our country die from suicide or homicide by gun than in mass shootings. 

Solutions have to start with understanding the causes of that violence, and we know that far more research is needed.  It seems evident to suggest that less ready access to guns would reduce suicide by gun, and likely homicides as well – yet according to our experts, gun buyback programs, which are often very comforting to a community, have had little impact on gun violence.

Community intervention programs were the single solution that found the most common ground in our discussions.  These programs engage local communities, sometimes through community-based organizations, schools, places of worship, or hospitals, in interrupting patterns of violence. 

They are very promising – and best of all, compared to most solutions, they are very inexpensive.  It is an area where far more investments should be made both in expanding and piloting programs, and in long term research in their outcomes.

Our experts also had many ideas for communication and education campaigns.  Of course, past public health campaigns have mixed results.  From encouraging use of seat belts to discouraging illegal drug abuse to COVID vaccinations, we can all readily remember campaigns that seem to have worked, and just as many that did not. 

Nevertheless, our experts highlighted a number of very targeted campaigns that were likely to generate success, including anti violence campaigns and conflict resolution training in schools, but only if they can be done without vilifying gun ownership.  Additionally, there was admiration for the very promising field of pushing back against online efforts by extremist groups to incite violence.

There seemed to be little or no downside to ideas surrounding increased safety and training.  Many of our most ardent gun rights supporters felt most passionately that providing easier access to safer gun storage and better training would make everyone safer. 

I was fortunate to be in the room for discussions with so many amazing experts giving their time and talent to respond to this crisis.  From them, I learned that all of these proposals will work best if aligned with wise legislation and policy, and that it is likely the best ways to reduce overall violence is to address root causes of economic equity and marginalization. 

It was shocking to me that the primary cause of death in children in our country has relatively little funding for research.  Most of all, it was hopeful to find that by collaborating across diverse thinkers from many disciplines, we were able to find that elusive common ground.  It made me believe, more than ever, that even on subjects where we have such deep divides, we can come together to find ways to make our children safer.

The post Can We Reach Consensus on How to Address Gun Violence? appeared first on Medika Life.

As a long-time supporter of Democrats, I’ve been forced into an awful realization during the past few years. None of what transpires under their governance is for the interests of the people they govern. While I am not suggesting the opposite is true of the Republicans, there is one critical difference. When called on to act, however reprehensible the calls may appear to us, steadfast Republican supporters respond.

The Nashville school shooting simply attests to this fact. How? Simply by the fact that the voice of power for unchecked gun ownership is driven primarily by Republicans. They are passionate and they are committed. The issue of abortion is another excellent example of how a dedicated and carefully construed Republican plan to eliminate women’s access to this life-saving option was like a steamroller flattening the people it most affects. How the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and then President Trump worked diligently to stack a Supreme Court with like-minded jurors?

While I type this, Republicans are in the last quarter of a fiendishly well-orchestrated campaign that, in its final steps, will, through a judge in Texas, overrule the FDA approval of a drug that doctors have relied on for decades to induce abortion safely. Where are the Democrats, you ask? Uncomfortably quiet. As they were when Roe v. Wade was overturned.

You see, Democrats absolutely do care, the truth is they may even voice outrage, but at the end of the day, they lack the “true grit” to do what is necessary to ensure the safety of their wives and their children. They don’t dare to stand up for themselves, and for this simple reason, Republicans will continue to ride roughshod over you like sheep. Unlike Charlton Heston’s mantra from the May 20, 2000, National Rifle Association national meeting, they don’t exhibit sufficient fire in the belly to cry out the sensible alternative to: “You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.” 

Before you accuse me of being harsh, let’s examine the issue of gun control and ownership of high-powered, semi-automatic weapons like the AR15, the homicidal maniac’s weapon of choice. After every school shooting, the public sings the same refrain. “This has to stop,” and “let this be the last, ” knowing it will never be. After all, didn’t we think Sandy Hook would be the last? How many lasts have happened since that horrific shooting – a war against children?

A reality check for those who still believe in your elected politicians to look after your best interests. How did the pandemic go, how’s that women’s right to choose plan looking, and is there a bipartisan bill to outlaw AR15s moving through both Houses of Congress? Thought not. Biden and co. will issue platitudes of ire on social media and make passionate statements; a week will pass. Then, like with all the previous atrocities committed in schools, it will be forgotten by all but the bereaved parents, traumatized classmates and teachers – forever emotionally scared.

Your Child Could be Next!!!

If you are privileged enough, do not think you can homeschool your child to adulthood in complete safety either. Shooting in malls, movie theaters, dance clubs and churches mean that nowhere on U.S. soil is your child beyond the reach of these armed maniacs, often themselves only recently children.

You know the risks to your children, and yet you still choose to do nothing. Where is the communal outrage of people assembling and marching in the streets? Since the Vietnam War, America has forsaken its power and the mechanisms of civil disobedience. Even the French shame you and the Republicans; they laugh, load their guns, and head off to the range. They photograph themselves and their families holding AR15s and standing in front of the family Christmas Tree on election campaign greeting cards.

Stopping This Madness is Possible!

It would be best if you acted as a united front to protect your children across the US, and strikes are the most effective means of achieving this. They require no confrontation, and send a message those in power cannot ignore. Act now, or suffer the consequences at the next election, and if you have children of your own, I pity them if you continue to sit idle. If for these two issues alone – choice and gun safety – rally and elect representatives who unite to keep people safe.

Boycott schools, keep your children home, shut down all educational institutions, mobilize the support of academia, administration and teachers who are also in the line of fire and make your voices heard, for the sake of your children and your country’s future. The world is watching and your children are living in fear. School is now a battlefield. Children are sent in buses to the front. Consider the mental anguish you are exposing your children to by your inaction. Consider the mental health of future generations.

While you’re about it, do right by your wives and partners, do right by the women you know and rely on for so much, do right by your daughters, and show them the support they deserve. Stand up for them in the same voice and help restore their access to choice. Help them restore their access to essential healthcare. Support for mothers, sisters, daughters and all children is a shared responsibility. Do not shirk away from this responsibility, I implore you.

The post Trump’s America. Deride Them, But They are Better Than You appeared first on Medika Life.

Many people point to mental illness as the cause of mass murder. According to research, sixty percent of mass shooters had a diagnosed mental condition, with depression and personality disorders being the most common. While it’s true that some people with mental illness are violent, the vast majority are not, and only a tiny fraction of mass killers have diagnoses of severe mental diseases like schizophrenia.

The perpetrator’s history of violence is another aspect suspected in mass murders. One study found that almost two-thirds of mass shooters had a history of violence, either in the form of past crimes or domestic abuse. According to these findings, a history of violence may be a major risk factor for mass murder. Bullying and abuse have also been noted in studies. What about guns?

The availability of firearms has also been linked to violence. A study found that mass shootings happen more often in the United States than in other industrialized countries because guns are so easy to get. I recall one professor telling us that if there’s a gun in the home, chances are it will be used against someone. But mass murders have other commingling factors contributing to their violence.

Mass murder is a tragically complicated phenomenon for which no simple answer exists. As noted, studies have found that some things, like mental illness, a history of violence, and access to guns, may make someone want to kill a lot of people. Even though these things may make mass murder more likely, they may not cause it.

More research is needed to figure out what causes mass murder and come up with effective ways to stop it. Gun availability is only one factor of many in this tragic equation.

Tragically, mass shootings have long been a problem in our society. It’s sad to see innocent people die in these senseless acts of violence, and it’s important to find out why these horrible things happen. Although the exact reason why some people turn into mass murderers and shooters is unknown, research points to a number of intricate and interconnected factors that may be at play.

Mental illness, as previously mentioned, is one element that has been linked to numerous mass shootings. Still, it’s important to keep in mind that most people with mental illness don’t act violently. It’s critical to understand that most violent crimes, such as mass shootings, are committed by people who haven’t been diagnosed with a mental illness.

But a history of mental illness, especially if it is not treated, might make it more likely that someone will act violently. There is a higher likelihood of aggressive behavior in people with some mental diseases, such as schizophrenia.

A history of trauma or abuse is another element that has been linked to mass shootings. Losing a loved one, physical or sexual abuse, neglect, or other traumatic experiences, are common among mass shooters. The gunman may occasionally seek retribution against people who they feel have mistreated them.

Social and cultural factors influence mass shootings. According to studies, societies with a high level of inequality and a culture of violence have a higher risk of mass shootings. That guns are everywhere in society is another factor that has been pointed out as a cause.

Gun violence, especially mass shootings, happens more often in places where more people own guns. Another factor may be the way the media reports on mass shootings since they often make the gunman and the act of violence seem like big news could also cause a “contagion” effect, in which potential shooters are influenced by what has happened before. How many “shooters” have a manifesto that they want to be published or read on TV?

Mass shootings also heavily depend on the shooter’s psyche. Research has found that many mass shooters have similar psychological traits, such as a need for attention, a sense of entitlement, and a lack of empathy for others. These people may also feel helpless or disenfranchised, which motivates them to use violence to gain control.

Some specialists have identified the “copycat effect” as a phenomenon. This means that people tend to act like the people they think are successful or powerful. In the case of mass shootings, this can look like people trying to act like previous shooters to get attention or feel powerful and in charge.

The more shootings that take place, the more the stress level will rise, but we must keep one thing in mind; more guns don’t equal safety.

The post Mass Murder Fired Up by Personal Loss or Something Else? appeared first on Medika Life.

America is experiencing an epidemic of gun violence, most recently witnessed in Buffalo, New York; Highland Park, Illinois; and Uvalde, Texas. According to the Gun Violence Archive, the United States has had at least 314 mass shootings since the start of 2022, and gun violence through suicide, domestic abuse, and other assaults has resulted in more than 23,500 deaths so far this year.

In launching this effort, Dr. Darryll Pines, President of the University of Maryland, stated, “Today, we add university presidents to the call for change. Why? Because guns are now the leading cause of death for young people, and we are charged with shaping young minds to tackle the grand challenges of our time. Because we lead communities that are deeply affected by the mass slaughter of citizens, and some weeks it feels like the flags at our public institutions fly ceaselessly at half-staff. And because universities are often the source of change and progress.”

“We are encouraged by political leaders at all levels and in all parties continuing to collaborate to make meaningful progress on reducing gun violence in America,” said Dr. Gregory Washington, President of George Mason University. “At the same time, President Pines and I proposed this initiative because we know that there are a host of non-political solutions that are desperately needed if we hope to change the tragic and escalating epidemic of gun violence.”

Consortium members are dedicated to leading on developing nimble, substantive, and actionable solutions to this complex issue. The 120 Initiative will engage subject-matter experts in a wide range of areas, such as gun violence, public and mental health, polarization, business sector engagement, citizen advocacy, education, and technology.

After analysis of available research, in approximately six months The 120 Initiative will share a series of evidence-based recommendations that provide all sectors with practical, tangible steps they can take, individually and collectively, to drive down gun violence. Time is of the essence.

“Our region arguably has the widest variety of public, private, and government expertise and Consortium universities and colleges are established leaders at the intersection of research, practice, and policy, especially on national issues,” said Dr. Andrew Flagel, President and CEO of the Consortium. “The 120 Initiative will collectively leverage our expertise to spur substantive progress on behalf of the nation and the more than 400,000 students in Consortium institutions.”

*Consortium institutions participating in The 120 Initiative:

• American University
• The Catholic University of America
• Gallaudet University
• George Mason University
• Georgetown University
• The George Washington University
• Howard University
• Marymount University
• Montgomery College
• Northern Virginia Community College
• Prince George’s Community College
• Trinity Washington University
• University of the District of Columbia
• University of Maryland
• University of Maryland Global Campus

Affiliate members:

• Johns Hopkins University
• Virginia Tech

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The horror of the loss will not fade. The searing pain of having to bury your child will never abate. The screams inside the hearts of these parents will never go silent. While the nation will have moved on from the tragedy, those left behind will have to deal with the unimaginable for the rest of their lives.

I lost my child to cancer in June 2009. It was the absolute worst day of my life. There is not a day that goes by in which my heart does not scream out in pain. It only takes a few moments of remembering the events of that horrible day to bring tears streaming down my face. The pain and horror of losing a child cannot be fully described by words.

A good friend of mine told me it is like having “an appendage ripped out of you.” It is much, much worse than that. It is a deep, searing, boring pain that is suffocating. And it never goes away. It will be 13 years next month, and the pain is as fresh as it was all those years ago.

At least my daughter died due to complications of cancer and the toxic chemotherapy used to treat it. I can wrap my head around that. I cannot wrap my head around losing my child to the senseless evil of a sick and depraved murderer. I cannot wrap my head around dropping my child off to school in the morning and then getting a call that he has been killed in the afternoon. Having lost a child, I still cannot even imagine this kind of terror.

But 19 families are currently going through this terror right now. 19 families are having to live with the unimaginable. 19 families are now enduring a torment and suffering that has no word in any language to describe it. Someone who loses his or her spouse is a widow or widower. A child who loses her parent is an orphan. There is no word to describe a parent who has buried his or her child. It is a monstrosity that is beyond description.

And 19 families are now dealing with this monstrosity head on. The attention on their tragedy by others will fade. Their pain, their suffering, their torment, the suffocation of their souls will never fade. Never.

And so, what can we do to help these families?

First of all, there are no words that can help. None. When they were putting dirt on my daughter’s pink casket, I became overwhelmed by the thought that my daughter is being buried, and I openly sobbed. Someone came from behind me and uttered the “right religious thing” to say. It backfired miserably. I was not comforted in the least.

What helped me the most was my friend, also coming up from behind me, holding my hand. I will never forget that or forget him for the rest of my life. We need to do the same for these families: reach out and hold their hands. Give them your shoulder to cry upon. Hug them and let them scream into your chest. Give them a space where they don’t have to “be strong,” because they are going through a pain that is indescribable in its horror.

As the days, and weeks, and months go by, the attention, the “thoughts and prayers,” and focus on Uvalde, Texas will fade. The nation – and the world – will move one. The pain and suffering of these families will not.

They will be going through their “Year of Firsts”: the first Memorial Day; the first Fourth of July; the first Halloween; the first Thanksgiving; the first Christmas; the first Birthday without their child. The same is true for the families of the two teachers also killed. It is a suffering unbearable in its scope and magnitude. Continue to be there for them as they try to pick up the pieces of their utterly shattered hearts. Continue to give them your hand, your shoulder, your hugs.

My heart bleeds and goes out to each and everyone affected by this horrific tragedy in Uvalde, Texas. My heart bleeds for each and every person – all over our country and the world – who has deal with the loss of a loved one, most especially a child. Lord our God, please comfort and heal them as only You can. Amen.

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