Today in class we spoke about the idea of a moral panic and the drastic effect that situations that cause it have on our society. The excerpt that we were assigned to read gave us an in-depth analysis of where the idea of a moral panic could’ve began. This reading involved the increasing spread of crimes that involve theft and violence, but that article focusing on this idea of “mugging.” Government officials labeled these crimes and set fire to a virtually new phenomenon in Great Britain that had pre-existed in the US. The reason why “mugging” became a moral panic was because at the time it was introduced it seemed like it couldn’t be contained. In 1999. Thirteen years ago, two gunmen entered Columbine High School and opened fire on everyone including students and teachers. There was no obvious reason why such an act occurred except for the fact that these criminals were vigilantes and believed that opening fire at a high school was a mission that they had to accomplish. The effect that this crime had on the US was beyond measurable. Schools around the nation had increased the amount of security, people weren’t sending their children to school and above all this was an act that seemed spontaneous and couldn’t be contained. Government officials had no motive as to what causes such an act to occur and people wanted answers. Overall this shooting caused a moral panic as to how can such an act be regulated and was there anyway for people to prevent such acts from occurring? A moral panic occurs when people don’t feel safe in their own neighborhoods or even in the confinement of their own home. This situation is different if a person assumes the risk of visiting a violence priven place and expects not to see any damaging imagery, but if a person is the in the confinement of their own neighborhood, their safe haven and they don’t consider themselves safe then this results in a moral panic. The victims of the columbine shooting were in the confinement of their own public high school, a relatively safe place where the only guns that are visible are in the holsters of well-trained police officials. For them to be stricken by such a tragedy has proven to be a keen and very real example of a moral panic.
http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.aspx?id=9966
http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/08/justice/virginia-tech-incident/index.html
http://history1900s.about.com/od/famouscrimesscandals/a/columbine.htm
I don’t see this incident like all the other moral panics we have read about or seen in class. I know there was changes to school policies and awareness that kids can act violently and needed counseling and surveillance at school. But the actual issue at the heart of Columbine is the gun violence. Gun violence in America should be considered an attack on society and should result in a moral panic, but every time one of these shootings happens guns never get subjected to moral panic. It’s always the shooter that gets the focus and the tragedy itself. Moral panic would result in real restrictions and monitoring of gun purchases, severe laws involving guns, and the targeting of all illegal sales of guns. But that has not happened yet. There is some focus on guns in the United States, but it seems to be only focused on guns that end up in Mexico. Columbine was awful and should have resulted in a moral panic about the crime committed, but some how it never materialized. If anything the shooting in Aurora has proven that moral panic in Colorado either never materialized or was focused on the wrong aspect of the crime.