Opinion: mass gun attacks may have not proliferated in Europe as they have in the US, but actions to ensure this remains so need to be taken now
Europe would do well to look to the United States as we think about how to ensure the events that occurred in Serbia in the last few days do not become commonplace here. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, as we think about the devastating events that have left 17 dead and 20 injured in two separate attacks in Serbia, to have one mass shooting may be regarded as a misfortune, to have two looks like carelessness- or at least lack of due diligence. Now is the time to act.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's News At One, Serbian president vows to 'disarm' nation after shootings
Research in the US, where these types of events are now a perennial problem, shows that mass shootings usually occur in clusters with a type of 'copycat' effect sometimes referred to as social contagion. The idea of socially contagious behaviour was originally proposed after modelling techniques used to study the spread of infectious diseases, were used to study patterns of behaviour.
Social contagion has been documented across a variety of behaviours from the everyday to the exceptional: smoking, diet and eating on the one hand through to hijackings and murder-suicide. It has been particularly well researched in relation to suicide. As a result of this work, we now know that there is a clear increase in the probability of a second event within the next two weeks when a mass shooting occurs.
Intensive media coverage seems to drive the risk associated with mass shootings, which are defined as incidents with more than four deaths in the US. This type of homicidal crime receives a lot more media coverage than other types of homicides. Indeed, it may surprise you to know mass shootings are actually responsible for the fewest lives lost though violent crime in the US. The attention though is now believed to contribute to social contagion.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Brendan O'Connor Show, Irish author in New York Colum McCann discusses the May 2022 Texas school shooting where 19 children and two teachers were killed
We now know the publicity shooters attract following acts of mass murder is often fundamental to their motivations. Fame and notoriety are ambitions. The death and destruction caused is a vehicle for hyper-attention. The more coverage and attention at a national, or even global level, the better. Understanding this effect has given rise to the 'Don't Name Them’ campaign which purposefully deflects attention and coverage away from perpetrators in the aftermath of these incidents.
In the research landscape, understanding of this phenomenon has also had consequences. The use of the term social contagion is a term some want retired as they believe that the social spread of mass shootings is better represented by the term imitation which captures the idea that we are generally motivated to copy those we look up to or mimic behaviours that are rewarded.
We can see how media notoriety, if seen as desirable, can be dangerous as it can inadvertently reward and amplify the social status of shooters at least in the eyes of some. Understanding these types of effects has given rise to wide ranging reporting guidelines in the US and it is likely time for similar action in the EU.
READ: America's problem with guns
We are also motivated to imitate those we identify with in terms of age, gender and circumstance. Though it is often referred to as such, the pattern of gun violence across the US and indeed in the Serbian cases is not random. It may be indiscriminate and shocking for sure - and rarely predicted by the victims or the bystanders - but there are commonalities in these acts.
Mass shooters are almost always men - and they are disproportionately young men. It helps no one to obscure the issue by calling this violence random and ignoring one clear pattern. We can also only imitate others if we have the means to do so. In this case, that requires access to a gun. It was illegal for the 13-year-old responsible for the first attack to be in possession of a gun, but gun control laws are not enough. Serbia has the fifth highest rate of gun ownership and third highest rate of private gun ownership in the World. It is preceded only by the countries like the US, the Falklands and Yemen. Access to guns matters.
We can learn valuable lessons from the American experience
Again, we can look to the US here. Making use of the assault weapon ban between 1994 and 2004 as a naturally occurring experiment, researchers looked at the effect of access to assault rifles on gun fatalities. Even when corrected for year-on-year incremental increases in gun deaths, this analysis shows that fatalities were 70% less likely to occur when the ban was in place. The ban on assault rifles worked.
We are lucky in Ireland and Europe that mass shootings have not proliferated as they have across the Atlantic. We can learn valuable lessons from the American experience. News travels fast and across national and international boundaries. Combating social contagion at national and EU level with reporting guidelines as well as reducing access to guns in Serbia and the EU is now imperative. Without taking proactive steps, we are carelessly toying with the risk that events of the last few days will recur and repeat.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
