Category: Assignment #2 & #3

Work Cited

Olson, Emily. “4 Big Questions about the Nashville School Shooting (and What We Know so Far).”NPR,29Mar.2023,www.npr.org/2023/03/29/1166804786/nashville-school-shooting-covenant-hale.

The purpose of this article is to answer some concerns after the Nashville school shooting happened. It answers the question of what the shooter’s motives are, how the government reacted and what they found out during their investigations.The audience can be anyone that is worried about the case and the victims families. The article explains the specific details of the facts about the school shooting and it uses a lot of evidence from interviews.

      Rozel,John,andJeffreySwanson.“It’sTemptingtoSayGunViolenceIsaboutMentalIllness.TheTruthIsMuchMoreComplex.”AAMC,26Jan.2023,www.aamc.org/news/it-s-tempting-say-gun-violence-about-mental-illness-truth-much-more-complex.

The article argues that the main cause of violence isn’t mental health. It explains the real reason why the rate of gun violence has increased in the US and why it shouldn’t be linked to mental illness. The audience for this article is people that care about gun violence and mental health. It uses many statistics to prove their point and it is easy to compare between numbers.

Ramchand,Rajeev,andLynsayAyer.“IsMentalIllnessaRiskFactorforGunViolence?”Www.rand.org,15Apr.2021,www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/mental-illness-risk-factor-for-gun-violence.html.

This article tries to bring awareness of firearms in suicide and that the factors of suicide are connected to mental health. It states that there are many different factors and reasons of why some people would choose to use guns to commit suicide and what causes them to make the choice. People that would read this article can be people that are interested to the topic of mental health and suicide or feels related. The article incorporates a summary in the beginning to the reason why the author wrote the article.

O’Brien,Erin.“ChangingtheNarrative:MentalIllnessandGunViolence.”Www.psychiatrictimes.com,vol.40,no.4,4Apr.2023,www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/changing-the-narrative-mental-illness-and-gun-violence.

The article explains the role of mental health and the connection between mental health and gun violence. It also includes what roles the psychiatrists and clinicians play in those situations. The audience of the article are people that are curious about the relationship between mental illness and gun violence. The article includes a lot of statistics but it also labels the paragraphs into sections for it to be easier to look at.    

O’Connor, Katie. “Mental Illness Too Often Wrongly Associated with Gun Violence.” Psychiatric News, vol. 56, no. 7, 1 July 2021, https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2021.7.23.

The purpose of the article is to spread awareness about the wrongful details that many have been believing about mental disorders. The article shows that most violence is not caused by mental illness and that many people still blame it on mental health without knowing that it’s not the reason. It uses scientific data and interviews from physiatrists and asks about their opinions on the topic. 

When people hear about gun violence and mass shootings, they would wonder what their motives are behind their actions. Slowly, they would connect it with mental health. Before the 1970’s people would think of mental health as dangerous and people that are diagnosed with it are defective. The views of mental health started to change through the past few years and more people are getting educated on what mental health is. However there are still many that when a harm occurred in society occurs the first cause that they would think of is mental illness. Mental health isn’t the main reason for gun violence instead, there are many factors that cause the tragedy. Mental illness is very complicated. It’s linked with our emotions and affects how we act and think as a normal person. Not only that it’s complicated on the effects it gives to a person but also the treatment part. Mental disorders aren’t easy to cure and some might not even be curable and it also takes time. 

On the other hand, gun violence isn’t just homicides which are the act of killing one person by another. It also include suicides and mass shootings with most suicides linking to mental health. As of in the US, the rate of gun murder has been increasing rapidly through the past few years especially during 2021. As of suicide firearms, it is too more than half of the other suicide deaths. The increasing rate is causing trauma and a mess to US society. Due to the legalization of owning firearms not only mass shootings and homicides increased but for the people trying to protect themselves from these situations also chooses to own a gun. What this causes are more gun violence and it creates a cycle that continues on and on.

The article Is Mental Illness a Risk Factor for Gun Violence? written by Rajeev Ramchand and Lynsay Ayer discusses on whether there are relations between mental health and self directed and impersonal gun violence based on scientific research. To find out the answer the answer, Ramchand and Ayer first researched about the connection with gun violence and suicide because most suicides are related to psychiatric disease and more than have of them chooses firearms to end their life. “A study of suicides and suicide attempts in Chicago between 1990 and 1997 found that those who used a gun were more likely to have a diagnosis of deppression or psychosis (Ramchand, Ayer).” There are still different reasons to why people who had a mental disorder to choose firearm as a way to suicide compared to the ones that didn’t suicide with a gun. It is also stated in the article that the ones that has a lower possibility to use a firearm to suicide was because they are being aware of and advised to not to do so. Moving on to homicides there is a study that shows “Amongst those same 951 people, 19 acts of gun violence committed by 9 people involved a stranger as a victim… and 1 percent committed an act of violence with a gun in which a stranger was the victim (Ramchand, Ayer).” Out of the 99 percent the victims aren’t strangers meaning that the assailants either know who their targets are or they know what they are doing. However there is also evidence stating that there is a high percentage that in the people that are victims of homicides, many of them are diagnosed with mental issues.   

Moving on to the second article Changing the Narrative: Mental Illness and Gun Violence authored by Erin O’Brien claims that people are blaming the reason for homicides and mass shootings towards mental health. “‘People feel better blaming these events on something that is treatable/genetic,” Thrasher told Psychiatric Times. (O’Brien)”. There isn’t a direct answer as of what the assailant’s motives are but they still want to give a reason that is reasonable and they’ve come to the conclusion that the reason is mental health. It would cause people to panic if they found out that mental disorder isn’t the reason because then any normal person would commit homicide. Since it isn’t the problem of mental illness it can be the problem of legally owning guns. According to one of the interviews in the same article there are more guns owned than individuals. What is the relationship between mental issues and gun laws? “Some states have strict gun laws, while others are more lenient. Some allow citizens to buy and carry guns without permits, training, or background checks (O’Brien).” Compared to the states that are strict with gun laws, for the states that aren’t, anybody would be able to own a gun and they probably wouldn’t be using guns at the right time that they should. This can also include individuals that have mental issues. Therefore, even if mental health is the reason for gun violence it still isn’t the main cause. There should’ve been a more strict policy for gun control. 

Many citizens believe that people that are mentally ill are the main elements of being a perpetrators of gun violence but they are rather the victims. Mental Illness Too Often Wrongly Associated with Gun Violence written by Katie O’Conner states, “In some circumstances, psychiatric patients may have a high risk of violence perpetration compared with the general population…Yet the risk violence may be correlated with other systemic concerns… (O’Conner).” There are other factors that can cause a psychiatric patient to become violent such as poverty or the use of drugs but it is not as likely for them to use a gun towards strangers. The reasons behind gun violence are still complicated. “…including being young, male, and disadvantaged and misusing drugs or alcohol (O’Conner).” The way how people are being raised and the disadvantages that they have really affects a person while they are still growing up. It can change the pathway of how their life would be like. 

In conclusion, mental disorders aren’t the main cause of gun violence. Anyone could be the perpetrator. Although, people with mental issues can be the victims rather than the assailant. There should be more focus on the gun laws from each state and ask if it is safe enough. The main issue also isn’t to what’s the cause but to how can there be a reduction of gun violence because linking gun violence with mental health is also being biased. 

On March 27, 2023 a massive school shooting occurred at a private christian school in Nashville. Six people were killed, including three that were students. Things happened so quickly that the school wasn’t able to react right away. The shooter was identified as a 28 year trans man, Audrey Hale. He was also a former student of the school. Before the shooting, Hale had been seeing a doctor. This leads to some questions such as whether mental illness plays in the role for the shooting to happen or what are his motives. How much safer can America be with citizens having access to guns? From the article 4 big questions about the Nashville school shooting (and what we know so far) by Emily Olson, she used pathos and ethos to answer their four questions that they had. In the Article It’s tempting to say gun violence is about mental illness. The truth is much more complex written by John Rozel and Jeffrey Swanson, the authors mainly use statistics to argue about the relation of gun violence and mental health.  

The article 4 big questions about the Nashville school shooting (and what we know so far) starts with a summary of what happened during the school shooting and cuts into the first question that they had. Beginning with the shooter’s motives, the Nashville Police spokesperson had included, “ This school… was a target of the shooter… But we have no information at present to indicate that the shooter was targeting anyone of the six individuals who were murdered.” The author tries to show credibility to the fact that there were no motives found for the shooter’s action and that there were more schools being targeted besides The Covenant School. Continuing on through the article, based on what the shooter’s parents and had mentioned and more investigation, “ The shooter’s parents believed their child had sold Hale’s only gun and didn’t have any firearms at home…Hale was under a “doctor’s care for an emotional disorder..but law enforcement knew nothing about the treatment.” As stated, Hale had mental problems before the school shooting and he was able to own a gun. This has made it extra concerning on whether his motives were caused by his mental disorder or there are just no motives.

While the first article focuses more on the event itself, the second article It’s tempting to say gun violence is about mental illness. The truth is much more complex. targets towards mental health and gun violence in general. The article includes many statistics starting with gun homicides and following on with explaining how people would blame killing innocent people with mental health. However, through their research conducted by the FBI, “…that only 25% of such assailants have a diagnosed mental illness.” Although the percentage of 25 means that there are cases that the assailants have mental health issues, it is still somewhat a low number. It wouldn’t count as a majority of the assailants. There isn’t any proof behind science to answer why mass shooters would kill people at random but there can be a lot of different reasons as to why they took the action. “In addition, crisis, trauma, and significant personal loss are common to some assailants, but those factors ultimately reveal little since they are shared by many people who never engage in a mass shooting.” The reasons behind their motives are complicated and might not be associated with mental illness.   

Even though the two articles can have different main ideas and a different group of audience there are still some similarities as of their structure and what they included in their writing. Both articles included statistics to back up their claims although article 2 used more of it in their piece. Article 1 used statistics when it mentioned about whether the school shooting was a hate crime and article 2 used it when mentioning about their research. Both also included a little part for what can be done next at the end of their articles from the state government and for the clinicians so that the rate for mass shootings can be lower.      In conclusion, the article 4 big questions about the Nashville school shooting (and what we know so far) obtained most of her evidence from her interviews with the police that’s responsible for the case. Article 2 It’s tempting to say gun violence is about mental illness. The truth is much more complex by John Rozel and Jeffrey Swanson includes logos to support that mental health isn’t the main cause of gun violence. While most of the assailants’ motives are not mainly due to mental disorder the percentage of gun homicide is still increasing. The government should be more strict about gun control laws since it does cause deaths.   

Noticing the problem: Covenant school shooting 

1. What is your preliminary thesis or working research question (the thing about your topic you want to find out)? NOTE: Your topic must be well-phrased and formulated, rather than a petty observation about your topic. Covenant school shooting, what are the causes that made the event occur, whether mental health plays a role in gun violence     

2. How do you plan on supporting your research? What types of sources do you think you will need? What sorts of obstacles might you run into when trying to conduct research on this topic? 

-currents news articles

-there might not be an answer to my question or it’s very broad 

3. Why is this topic interesting to you? Why do you care about this topic? 

-This topic interests me because there’s been a lot of school shootings happening but it used to be not as often that I heard about them. Each time when I hear about things that shootings have occurred, the more fear that it creates. It also made me aware of how much America isn’t as safe as I thought or just the community around me. Each time I think about how people are allowed to carry guns around makes me feel unsafe. I’m curious what the shooters were thinking when they planned to take the action. Why did they target kids? What is the purpose for them? The way the government has reacted, will it cause more problems in the future?  

4. Why should your readers care about this topic? 

-You never know if one day it’ll occur around you