The first day of April marks an interesting accomplishment for our country. It hasn't been written about anywhere in the news, which is exactly what makes it notable. America has officially gone a full six months without a single nationally newsworthy mass shooting. Not one "horrifying national tragedy" or "senseless slaughter" to read about, not a single presidential speech vowing solemnly to not let it happen again. Not even a photo of wailing parents or somber police officers shedding one tear of rage. It's a milestone that's worth considering.

What's both curious and exciting was that I struggled to remember when and where the last of these tragedies took place. The last time we had a mass shooting notable enough to get national attention was in September, when a gunman killed 12 people at the Washington Navy Yard. After the alleged gunman committed suicide, reporters forced themselves on the shocked witnesses of the tragedy, President Barack Obama said a few remorseful words and that was the end of that. Just another in a long line of senseless tragedies that shock us to the core, force us to ask hard questions about the role of guns and violence in our culture and demand that we find an answer to this problem now to prevent it from happening again. And then, well, it happens again. 

But in this case, it hasn't-at least not for a little while. We've all moved on, and other issues have taken up the headlines. When Obama proposed a multi-million dollar gun safety program early this month, it received practically no attention from any news organization. 

Why should it? The proposed program's more stringent background checks and school safety pilot projects are similar to the policies of a 2013 bill that didn't pass in the wake of the Newtown, Conn. shooting, perhaps the most shocking of these events in recent history. Now, there was no impetus for the country to pay attention to yet another bill that only drags up painful memories. 

The surprising thing about this almost uniquely American issue is that we aren't surprised by it anymore. As a nation, we simply no longer have the emotional space to watch more Katie Couric interviews with mourners, or to hear Mother Jones and the National Rifle Association scream at each other for the 100th time over. The grief of a nation has become routine and clich?(c)d.

And as strange as it is to say, that is possibly the best thing that could have happened. We have grown exhausted, and perhaps even bored, with talking about the issue. Thus, we don't want to give it attention. 

Among the many theories as to why America has a shooting problem, one of the most dominant is that the media promotes it. After each tragedy, journalists try to find out every detail of a shooter's life and background in search of an explanation, which may earn plenty of money, but perpetuates a very real problem. Eric Hickey, Dean of the California School of Forensic Studies, states in his book Serial Murderers and Their Victims that massacre shooters often construct elaborate inner narratives of how and why the world has wronged them, and use their shootings as a theater to express this story, what is to them a revenge tale against an uncaring world. The more attention they can get, the more people know their supposed truth. And if we put the alleged Boston Marathon bomber on the cover of Rolling Stone, it sends a clear message to other potential attackers.

In a 1999 study, Paul Mullen, director emeritus of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health, found that gun massacres often occur in "clusters," since perpetrators are inspired by each other. He describes speaking to one imprisoned killer who claimed to be "going for the record," by killing more bystanders than any other similar criminal. Mullen's findings were reaffirmed in a 2002 study in Germany, examining violent crimes across multiple countries. Over and over, the most senseless and inexplicable tragedies occurred close to each other in time, especially when killers became aware of each other's actions through the media or some other source of information. 

Is the media single-handedly responsible for mass shootings? Of course not. To oversimplify a criminal and mental issue that no one fully understands does a disservice to everyone. To fix this problem, significant arms reform will likely be necessary (look at Australia's drop in crime since banning assault weapons), and our culture's unhealthy obsession with fictional violence will need to be seriously considered and controlled. But the more we can abstract these debates from the issue of mass shootings, the better capable we will be of not only preventing violence, but of thinking deeply and logically about the implications of potential changes in Second Amendment or censorship laws. These are issues unto themselves, and we should not allow either side to use cheap and exploitative emotional appeals. The best preventative measures to take with gun violence is simply to not give it more attention. 

Eventually, at some point somewhere, a group of people will be killed for no clear reason. The person who does this will be horribly troubled and in desperate need of someone to talk to. It will be a tragedy. 

When it happens, the media ought not to discover the life history of the murderer, or print hundreds upon thousands of pictures of the terrified masses. The media is responsible for providing a forum for the public to mourn, showing people ways they can help the grieving and then moving on. 

Nobody benefits from lingering on pain, and the less time we spend around exploitative shock stories and images, the longer it seems to be before they appear again. It appears that America may be on the way out of its current "cluster" of mass shootings. I hope we're better prepared for the next one.
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