My audience is the Washington Heights community as a whole as I try to spread awareness of violence not only in our community but how it can be in others as well. I tried to write my paper using rhetorical choices to make it easier for the person reading my essay to feel sympathy for people going through gun violence and how much danger they are in just by being around it. For this paper, I used an old survey form from an awareness segment I had and went more in-depth about the topic as a whole. I had questions asking if they have experienced a form of gun violence or had even come into contact with guns. Of course, for research purposes, I narrowed it down to children 18 and younger. 

I learned a lot during the time writing my paper as I took the time to analyze my own community and how gun violence in my community compares to other communities. I compared mines to the most dangerous communities like st. Louis, Memphis, and Chicago. I found that my community although being around gun violence and being in past contact with it has not seen as much death as these other more dangerous communities. I also learned how to write a research paper the right way because towards the end before changing it up I had written the paper using the first person which is not what a research paper is about. A research paper is meant to give out information about a topic, almost like a science project I could not put my emotion into my writing. The research paper has to be non-biased. 

Something that has impacted my learning and writing practices was trying to learn the Chicago format I could tell that the Chicago format when citing gives the paper a much cleaner look and it is relatively easier than the MLA or APA formatting. However, for this paper, I stuck to MLA and next time I will use Chicago 

This phase definitely helped me with finding credible sources and helped me practice how to find sources and translate them into my paper. Most of the sources I got were from Ebsco which is a respectable place to get sources since they are all on a database. All the evidence I got was then analyzed into helping the audience see the problem for what it is so that they too can be aware of the cause. I took this as practice so that I can help improve my skills in collecting the evidence to then help my audience interpret the situation by giving them evidence so that they can see what was happening.

THE EFFECT OF GUN VIOLENCE ON MENTAL HEALTH

As cases relating to gun violence have been going up it has taken a toll on children’s mental health. There are places where children grow up with gun violence and some don’t end up growing up at all. Gun violence has become the leading cause of death for children(Children’s Defense Funds, 2021). Many of the big reasons why this is the case are because of school shootings. School shootings play a big part in gun violence that affects children mentally, and emotionally, does badly academically, and even experiences PTSD. It is also noted that gun violence varies depending on race, as the race that is leading in affected by gun violence mental; health is the African American group. Gun violence does not even have to be directed at the child just being around or related to gun violence can trigger a mental health-related problem. 

When children come face to face with gun violence it severely affects their mental health. Mental health disorders in children are generally defined as delays or disruptions in developing age-appropriate thinking, behaviors, social skills, or regulation of emotions. These problems are distressing to children and disrupt their ability to function well at home, in school, or in other social situations. A study held by Penn medicine (2021) showing the number of children visiting the ED after shootings stated that 43,143 of the 54,341 patients investigated had one or more emergency department (ED) visits in the 60 days following a shooting, while 42,913 had one or more ED visits in the 60 days before shooting. 814(31%) of the 2,629 shooting events in the data set had one or more matching mental health-related ED visits in the 69 days following the shooting. Children who lived within an eighth of a mile, or 2-3 blocks, of a gun violence incident, were more likely to seek treatment for mental health problems in the emergency room (Odorczyk, 2021). “Gun violence” is rising as children are starting to feel that school is failing to provide safe and healthy learning(Odorczyk, 2021). PENN does not address the type of in-school violence that metal detectors and armed guards are intended to prevent. Instead, it focuses on how the negative consequences of gun violence outside of the schoolhouse seem to affect the children in one way or another. 

School shootings have been demonstrated to have negative consequences on children’s mental health. According to the most thorough study to date of American children who are exposed to gun violence at school, children have greater rates of school absenteeism, poorer high school, and college graduation rates, and earn lesser wages by the time they reach their mid-twenties(Krysten Crawford, 2021). The incidence of school shootings in the United States has nearly doubled in the 20 years since the Columbine High School atrocity. According to Krysten Crawford, almost 100,000 American youngsters visited a school where a shooting occurred in the years 2018 and 2019. For example, Rossin-Slater co-authored a study last year that found a 21% increase in antidepressant use among youth under the age of 20 in local communities where fatal school shootings occurred in the previous two years. Her larger research agenda examines how gun violence and other factors impact child health and well-being (Crawford, 2021). “Researchers found that students who were sophomores and juniors at the time of the gun violence incident were 3.7 percent less likely to graduate high school; 9.5 percent less likely to enroll in any college; 17.2 percent less likely to enroll in a 4-year college, and 15.3 percent less likely to obtain a bachelor’s degree by age 26. Meanwhile, students who were in grades 9 to 11 when the shooting occurred were 6.3 percent less likely to be employed between the ages of 24 and 26. They also earned about $2,780 — or 13.5 percent — less than students who attended similar schools and students who attended the same schools in the years before the shooting occurred. This effect translates into a $115,550 loss in lifetime earnings per shooting-exposed student”(Crawford, 2021). Moreover, by the ages of 24 to 26, those who attended a school where a shooting occurred earn 13.5 percent less compared to same-age individuals who attended similar schools and to cohorts who attended the same schools years before the shooting took place. The researchers estimate that this reduction in earnings amounts to a loss in lifetime income of $115,550 per shooting-exposed student.”(Crawford, 2021). The Century Foundation pursues economic, racial, and gender equity in education, health care, and work, and promotes U.S. foreign policy that fosters international cooperation, peace, and security. They said “In the same year as the Sandy Hook disaster, an Urban Institute study used ShotSpotter sensor data to track gunshots that went off near DC public schools. In total, it picked up 336 incidents of gunfire during the school day, and over half of these occurred within 1000 feet of a public school”(Quick, 2016). The problem is that guns are given to the wrong people research by 24/7 wall street stated that “Across the United States, there were 4.4 firearm deaths for every 100,000 people from the start of 2015 through the end of 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Gun violence tends to be concentrated in America’s major cities, as the firearm death rate in the country’s 50 largest metro areas is 4.9 per 100,000”(Stebbins, 2019). One step to decrease the number of children affected by gun violence is to make the requirements stricter so that the number of people having guns can decrease. In 2019, nine children and teens were killed with guns each day in America—one every 2 hours and 36 minutes. Guns killed more children and teens than cancer, pneumonia, influenza, asthma, HIV/AIDs, and opioids combined. Since 1963, nearly 193,000 children and teens have been killed with guns on American soil—more than four times the number of U.S. soldiers killed in action in the Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq wars combined. (children’s defense fund,2021). Exposure to gun violence during childhood and adolescence is linked to feelings of rage and dissociation, alters sleep patterns, and increases the prevalence of mental health problems such as anxiety, depression, and PTSD(Quick, 2016). 

Most of this data has to do with race as the number of Black minors murdered in the United States is disproportionate to the number of Black people living in the country. In 2012, a greater number of Black youths between the ages of 13 and 16 were victims of homicide across the country, according to FBI statistics. These figures are based on CDC research that shows that gun violence is a major concern among Blacks of this age group, particularly Black males. According to the CDC (2012), boys between the ages of 10 and 24 are more likely than girls or people of any other age group to die as a result of gun violence. Black boys between the ages of 10 and 24 are more likely than any other population to be victims of gun violence (Parham-Payne, 2014). Secondhand exposure to gun violence(not directly affected, either around gun violence or related to the incident), according to researchers, can also expose children the mental health crisis. “The disparity is even greater in certain geographies of large cities, specifically those that are more racially and ethnically diverse. For example, in 2014, in Philadelphia’s safest police district, which is approximately 85% White, no one was reported killed by gun violence. In the most violent district, with roughly 90% Black population, there were 189 shooting victims and 40 deaths (Philadelphia Police Department, 2017). The homicide rate for Black Americans in all 50 states is, on average, eight times higher than that of Whites (CDC, 2017). In general, U.S. residents are 128 times more likely to be killed by everyday gun violence than by international terrorism; Black people specifically are 500 times more likely to die this way (Xu, Murphy, Kochanek, & Bastian, 2016). Importantly, most urban areas, especially those that experience the most gun violence, are characterized by poverty, inequality, and racial segregation” (Sampson, 2013). Although racial/ethnic minority students do not die in mass shootings at the same rate as white students, they are nevertheless victims of and exposed to gun violence at higher rates. “Almost 3,000 children are shot and killed every year in the United States, with guns taking the lives of 10 times more Black children than White children (Fowler, Dahlberg, Haileyesus, Gutierrez, & Bacon, 2017)”(Mitchell, 2019).  

Gun violence has taken a toll on the mental health of children in schools, public places, and even in their households. This problem is seen in a specific race group more than others as the black race is the leading of people affected by gun violence. What I am trying to achieve is studying how much African American children get affected by gun violence and how it relates to the need for mental, emotional, and academic help.

Works Cited

“The State of America’s Children 2021 – Gun Violence.” Children’s Defense Fund, 28 Mar. 2021, https://www.childrensdefense.org/state-of-americas-children/soac-2021-gun-violence/. 

Pennmedicine.org, https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2021/september/gun-violence-exposure-associated-with-higher-rates-of-mental-health-related-ed-visits-by-children. 

“New Study of Gun Violence in Schools Identifies Long-Term Harms.” Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), https://siepr.stanford.edu/news/new-study-gun-violence-schools-identifies-long-term-harms#:~:text=The%20most%20comprehensive%20analysis%20to%20date%20of%20American,rates%2C%20and%20earn%20lower%20incomes%20by%20their%20mid-twenties. 

QuickContributor, Kimberly, et al. “Gun Violence Puts Education under Fire, Stifling Achievement.” The Century Foundation, 6 June 2016, https://tcf.org/content/commentary/gun-violence-puts-education-under-fire-stifling-achievement/?session=1&agreed=1. 

Stebbins, Samuel. “Cities with the Most Gun Violence.” 247 Wall St, 24/7 Wall St., 4 Aug. 2019, https://247wallst.com/special-report/2019/08/04/cities-with-the-most-gun-violence/. 

“Gun Violence and the Minority Experience.” National Council on Family Relations. Accessed November 14, 2022. https://www.ncfr.org/ncfr-report/winter-2018/gun-violence-and-minority-experience. 

“Youth Gun Violence Section.” Juvenile Justice Information Exchange. Accessed November 14, 2022. https://jjie.org/hub/youth-gun-violence/.