At one point in time the news of the first mass school shooting left everyone in shock. The nation was beyond devastated as they struggled to understand what would drive a person to do such a horrible thing; but now it’s nothing new. We have become desensitized to such tragedies that should be leaving us asking “what can we do so that this never happens again?” Instead we are asking “When will the next one be?”

As newsworthy of a piece a school shooting may appear, could it be that instead media carries some sort of blame in the issue? When we look back at previous school shootings the evidence seems pretty clear. Since 2012, reports of school shootings have increased dramatically. While gun laws and mental health hold blame in these situations, some believe the media has its own part to play as well.

When living in a population as large as the United States is, it unfortunately expected to experience gun violence in parts of the nation-especially when you have as many guns as we do. However, data shows that when it comes to school shootings, threats seem to spike up following the days the mass shooting was reported.

Looking at the incident that occurred this Wednesday, February 14, several other schools across the nation received their own threats of a shooting (as well as lock downs and arrests) only a day after the shooting took place. This is what’s known as the Copycat Effect. After the media reports on large crimes, there is an increase, sometimes only days after, in the same crimes that were previously reported on. But the CopyCat Effect is hardly the biggest problem here. When mass shootings are reported in detailed fashions (as they usually are) future mass shooters are able to look those over and figure out ways to “get away with it”. Just a day before the shooting in Parkland, an 18 year old boy was arrested after his grandmother found a notebook detailed with what appeared to be plans of a future school shooting; his target chosen by a coin flip. “I’m learning from past shooters/bombers mistakes, so I don’t make the same ones” he wrote. It’s terrifying to think that we are allowing possible future shooters to observe the “mistakes” of previous ones and somehow learn from them.

I asked senior Mia Poer on her thoughts on media coverage of school shootings and here is her reply. “I want to say awareness comes out on how to make things better, but instead it’s just a lot of negativity and nothing ever seems to happen to stop it”.”There have been no changes so far”.