There’s another thing that can be done today. It doesn’t require passing any legislation. We’ve been talking about it since 2015 here on the blog.
STOP. SAYING. THEIR. NAMES.
These horrific events are like train wrecks. We all doom scroll and click link after link to find out WHY? How did this happen, why did they do it? It’s understandable. The media knows those who get the information out first gets the clicks and that sweet, sweet advertising revenue.
I’m not saying don’t report on it. Not saying to not look into the why, how, and what. But don’t give these fame seeking assholes the recognition they crave. It incentivizes the next one and we get the spreading contagion. Call them “Some Asshole” or “Total Coward”. Provide as few identifying details as are absolutely necessary and NEVER mention their name.
To quote our previous blog:
Lankford notes, “We know that a lot of public mass shooters, particularly when they’re young, have admitted that they really want to be famous, and that killing is how they’re going to do it.” Google “wanted to top columbine,” as suggested by LiveScience, and you get result after result after result of publicity murderers thinking Columbine is something to be admired.
Mary Muscari of Binghamton University, who has also studied publicity murderers, says,
“Especially some of the younger ones — they want attention. That’s why you see them wanting to have a bigger head count, a bigger body count, to try to outdo the last one or to do something that is going to cause more of a rise.”
STOP. SAYING. THEIR. NAMES.