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Following a shocking incident in which a first-grade student shot and seriously injured a teacher at a school in Newport News, Virginia, the city's mayor asked, "How did this happen?"
Some information is now available: The child stole the gun from his home, and his mother legally purchased the firearm.
Many other aspects of the incident remain unknown, including the likely many factors that led to the boy shooting his teacher. However, as experts in media use and its links to violence, we have reported some troubling findings about how gun violence depicted in media such as television, movies, and video games influences children. What's more concerning is that millions of children in the United States have easy access to firearms in their homes, increasing the risk of gun deaths, including suicides.
Children's reactions to media violence
According to studies, the depiction of gun violence in movies and on television is increasing. According to our findings, gun violence in PG-13 films has nearly tripled in the 30 years since the rating was introduced in 1984. Moreover, PG-13 films aren't just for teenagers and up. A 2019 survey of adults found that 12% were allowed to watch PG-13 movies between the ages of 6 and 9, with 6% watching such films when they were even younger.
Although some critics argue that violent media does not cause children to become more aggressive, a large survey conducted in 2015 discovered that the majority of paediatricians and media scholars agree there is a link.
Violent media can also influence children to engage in riskier behaviour if they come across a real gun. In one of our studies, exposure to both movies and video games with guns was found to encourage children aged 8 to 12 to pick up a real gun hidden in a drawer and pull the trigger, even while pointing the gun at themselves or a friend. A hidden camera caught this behaviour..
This is what can happen if parents fail to keep a gun in a secure location at home.
The child involved in the Virginia shooting was under the age of eight, but there's no reason to believe the effects we discovered would differ in a younger child. Indeed, the effects may be stronger in younger children because children under the age of eight may struggle to differentiate between reality and fantasy.
Children can become desensitised to violence as a result of media violence. According to one study, "children exposed to multiple sources of violence may become desensitised, increasing the likelihood of them imitating and accepting aggressive behaviour as normal."
Movies rated PG-13 that contain gun violence depict the use of guns in unrealistic ways. The effects of gun use in such films are frequently sanitised, so that there is rarely much blood or serious harm, as opposed to what is typically shown in R-rated films. This may give a child the impression that using a gun to hurt someone is not as dangerous as it could be.
What concerns us about these findings is that they come at a time when younger children are consuming more media. According to a 2021 report by Common Sense Media, children's media consumption has increased faster in the two years since the pandemic than in the previous four years. During the pandemic, children aged 5 to 11 spent an average of more than three hours per day on screens and consuming media, according to research.
Guns in Home
Children are naturally inquisitive, and adults frequently underestimate their ability to locate hidden firearms in the home. "Their brains are developing," one firearms expert observed. The same curiosity that drives them to pick up a book and learn to read can drive them to look for a parent's gun."
And, with 120.5 guns per 100 residents, the United States has far more civilian-owned guns per capita than any other country in the world; Yemen comes in second with 52.8 guns per 100 residents.
The United States is also an outlier in terms of gun-related violence, with rates approximately 23 times higher than in other developed countries.
According to data from the nonprofit organisation Everytown for Gun Safety, more than 300 people are injured or killed each year in unintentional shootings by children. To the best of our knowledge, no data on the number of people intentionally shot by children is available.
It is critical for gun owners to keep firearms unloaded and ammunition separate, especially if there are children in the house. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, all guns should be secured to reduce "the risk of both unintentional gun injuries and intentional shootings." A third of American homes with children have guns, but less than half of gun owners secure their firearms. An estimated 4.6 million children in the United States will live in a home with unlocked, loaded guns by 2022.
The public is unaware of what prompted a student at a Virginia elementary school to shoot his teacher. The research, on the other hand, clearly shows that media exposure to gun violence, as well as easy access to firearms in the home, all serve to increase the risks of any child picking up a gun.
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