18, 19, 20: Violence
- Bumper w/Music
- Live Intro (Serious tone, no funny openings/housecleaning)
- Trigger Warnings (Violence, Guns, Death)**
- Discuss recent high-profile shootings
- 05/14/22 - Tops Grocery Store
- Buffalo, NY
- 10 killed 3 injured
- Racially motivated??
- 05/24/22 - Robb Elementary School
- Uvalde, TX
- 22 killed 17 injured
- ??
- 06/01/22 - St Francis Hospital/Natalie Building
- Tulsa, OK
- 5 killed
- Healthcare Worker Violence??
- 07/04/22 - 4th of July Parade
- Highland Park, IL
- 8 killed 29 injured
- No clear motive according to authorities. However there is mounting evidence that points to rascist and anti-semitic rhethoric from the shooter.
- Segue into Episode
- Segment 1 - Gun Violence
- Gun Violence Statistics
- Gun Violence is the 13th leading cause of death overall
- Gun Violence is the 1st leading cause of death in children
- Mississippi, Louisiana, Wyoming, Missouri, and Alabama have the highest per capita deaths
- School Shootings
- History & Statistics
- Pontiac's Rebellion school massacre on July 26, 1764, where four Lenape American Indians entered the schoolhouse near present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania, shot and killed schoolmaster Enoch Brown, and killed nine or ten children (reports vary). Only two children survived.
- November 2, 1853, Louisville, Kentucky A student, Matthew Ward, bought a self-cocking pistol in the morning, went to school, and killed Schoolmaster Mr. Butler for excessively punishing his brother the day before. Even though he shot the Schoolmaster point-blank in front of his classmates, he was acquitted.
- 1992 -1999 (401 Deaths) (Columbine)
- 2000 - 2009 (147 Deaths)
- 2010 - 2019 (133 Deaths) (Sandy Hook) (Marjory Stoneman Douglas)
- 2020 - June 2022 (113 Deaths) (Uvalde)
- (see end of outline for charts)
- Motives for School Shootings
- Hirschi’s Social Control Theory (1969)- A model to explain why people follow laws to gain insight into how they break them. Hirschi’s theory consists of four main "social bonds." When one or more of the following social bonds are weakened, or severed altogether, individuals are more susceptible to crime and deviance.
- Attachment
- Compassion and Empathy towards friends, family, coworkers, classmates, etc.
- School shooters who are bullied or suffering from abuse do not form attachments to these people, instead they harbor anger, frustration, and disappointment.
- Some shooters have targets, but many fires randomly into three schools. Suggesting no regard for human life, and a rationalization for their actions.
- Commitment
- Time and Energy one puts into a specific activity or goal. Pursuing a Degree or a position at work.
- Engaging in a crime will hamper and hurt the chances of one obtaining their goals.
- Shooters foresee no future beyond the shooting. They enter a kill or be killed mode, and commit suicide by cop or kill themselves.
- Involvement
- Being engrossing in fulfilling social activities.
- Those involved don't have time or desire to commit illegal activities. Extracurricular Activities keep kids out of trouble.
- Shooters are typically loners that don't fit in or take part in any social activities or groups
- Belief
- An individual believes in the social rules, expectations, and laws of society as taught to them by parents, family members, and friends as well as social institutions.
- The stronger one’s moral beliefs in the social norms, the less likely they are to participate in delinquent or criminal activities.
- Criminal offenders either disregard society’s shared beliefs or rationalize their own deviant behavior. A shooter will disregard what he/she has been taught or rationalize their behavior so they can go through with the mass shooting.
- In the 1960s, Hirschi observed a loss of social control over individuals and an accompanying rise in crime, particularly among adolescents. Social institutions such as organized religion, the family, educational institutions, and political institutions were not as prominent in the life of adolescents. As a result, these individuals started to challenge conventional social norms and expectations. Hirschi blamed this on the breakdown of the aforementioned social institutions, particularly the breakdown of the family due to increasing rates of divorce and single-parent households. This breakdown caused a loss of resiliency.
- Profiling School Shooters
- The typical American school shooter is likely to be a Caucasian adolescent male from a middle-class community who attends or attended a suburban high school. Further, the shooter is likely to be a loner, an outcast, and is described by teachers and peers as being socially awkward with a limited number of friends. The majority of school shooters were victims of bullying. Many of the shooters were ridiculed, belittled, demeaned, or even ostracized to the point where it might be assumed revenge or retaliation became a strong motivating force for their actions.
- How to Protect Schools?
- What can teachers do?
- Ethics for Educators - Vicki Nishioka, senior researcher at Education Northwest.
- Positive teacher-student relationships lead to increased cooperation and engagement in the classroom. They also contribute to a welcoming, inclusive school climate that promotes equity, social and emotional learning, and improved student outcomes.
- Build relationships with each student. Positive learning environments and engaging instruction help all students achieve success. Caring and emotionally supportive classrooms are particularly important for students who have had a challenging life and/or school experiences.
- Use and model perspective-taking and empathy. The way students interpret their interactions with their teachers can have a lasting impact. Perspective-taking (putting yourself in a student’s shoes) can help you recognize each student’s strengths. In addition, it will lead to a deeper understanding of the daily challenges they experience.
- Here are a few key things to remember when practicing perspective-taking:
- Show genuine interest in your students and let them know that getting to know each of them as an individual is important.
- Ask students about their opinions, interests, and background.
- Listen to what students say as if you might be wrong.
- Be intentional in your efforts to learn how students view different situations.
- Use nonjudgmental, solution-focused problem-solving.
- The research is clear that having positive relationships between students and teachers are critical to the learning process - and that reflects most teachers’ experience. Marvin Marshall, certified as a “Distinguished Educator,” wrote that before we deal with any kind of discipline issue we should reflect on one thing: Will what we plan to do bring us closer together or push us apart?
- In short, teacher-student relationships can promote school success in the following ways:
- Strengthens academic achievement
- Reduces chronic absenteeism
- Promotes self-motivation
- Strengthens self-regulation
- Improves goal-making skills
- Training to Kill
- Armed Forces
- Soldiers are taught to be killers - it's part of their job - and their training includes firing at an image of the enemy. German photographer Herlinde Koelbl has made a study of these images, collected into a thematic project called “Targets” (see photo at end of outline)
- Koelbl met with a soldier at a shooting range who told her about targets that he had shot at "My target used to be the green figure of Ivan with a red star on his helmet." The enemy was the Soviet Union. The red star has gone. New targets have appeared, figures with eastern-looking clothing and dark skin. A new enemy?
- But who is the enemy? The enemy is always the other one. "I never felt guilty about killing people who deserved to die. In my eyes, they deserve to die because they are the enemy. I am trained to think that way,"
- Dave Grossman describes in his book, On Killing, that “humans have natural inhibitions about killing”. According to Grossman, we have become good at training people to kill as a reflex and creating cold-blooded killers. The key to this is conditioning through desensitization in training.
- Police
- When police officers find themselves in an active shooter scenario they are taught to enter quickly in small formations — or even enter with only one or two officers — to disable any gunman. Texas protocols, included in materials that Uvalde officers were trained on as recently as two months ago, advise that an “officer’s first priority is to move in and confront the attacker. This may include bypassing the injured and not responding to cries for help from children.”
- Quote
- Warriors deal with death. They take life away from others. This is normally the role of God. Asking young warriors to take on that role without adequate psychological and spiritual preparation can lead to damaging consequences. It can also lead to killing and the infliction of pain in excess of what is required to accomplish the mission. The more blurred the boundary is between the world where they are acting in the role of God and the world where they are acting in an ordinary societal role, the more problematic the reintegration becomes. - Retired Marine - Karl Marlantes, What It Is Like to Go to War, 2011
- Segment 2 - Workplace Violence in Healthcare
- Define Workplace Violence
- My facility defines Workplace Violence “as an act or acts of threatening, aggressive, or disruptive behavior in the workplace. It can include verbal, nonverbal, written, and or physical aggression; threatening, intimidating, harassing, or humiliating words or actions; bullying; sabotage; sexual harassment; physical assault; or other behaviors of concern involving care team members, staff, patients, customers or vistors.
- Statistics
- “According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics data published this year, the incidence of violence-related healthcare worker injuries has steadily increased for at least a decade. Incidence data reveals that in 2018, healthcare and social service workers were five times more likely to experience workplace violence than all other workers.
- In the healthcare system that I work for, a physical attack or threat of violence is reported by a team member every 8.8 hours. This is interesting since acts of workplace violence tend to be underreported, this according to JCAHO (Joint Commision on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations).
- 9 in 10 healthcare workers have seen or experienced violence in the workplace, according to a survey in May 2022. (Discuss my experience.) (B)
- Gun Violence Against Healthcare Workers
- Shootings at hospitals/healthcare facilities are still rare however they are becoming more and more common.
- 10/2021 - Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Philadelphia, PA
- 01/2022 - NYC Health+Hospitals/Jacobi, NYC, NY
- 06/01/2022 - Saint Francis Health System Natalie Medical Building, Tulsa, OK
- 06/14/2022 - Miami Valley Hospital, Dayton, OH
- Increase in Healthcare Worker WPV since Pandemic
- “In a 2019 nursing survey one in four nurses reported being physically assaulted. More recent studies indicate that there has been an overall increase in workplace violence incidents at healthcare facilities during the pandemic.”
- An AHA study showed that 44% of hc workers reported an increase in physical violence, and 68% reported an increase in verbal abuse.
- Reported physical attacks have increased 45% during the pandemic in the healthcare system that I work for.
- Impact on Healthcare Industry
- It has lasting effects on our healthcare system and deeply impacts clinicians on a personal and professional level. Workplace violence can have a wide range of impacts, including effects on self-esteem, relationships with co-workers, patient care, professional growth, recruitment, and retention.The psychological trauma often makes individuals fearful of returning to work. They may experience feelings of guilt and powerlessness. There’s also the economic impact of workplace violence including having to take time off from work, legal fees and out of pocket medical expenses.
- Without a healthy healthcare workforce, no one is getting cared for.
- Preventative Measures (What can hospitals/healthcare facilities do?)
- Combat violence/gun violence through vigilance and prevention.
- Education
- Training
- Active shooter drills
- Panic buttons
- Patient Alerts
- De-escalation training and scripts
- Increased Security/Cameras
- Routes of escape
- Need for Protections (Call to arms.)
- Federal - Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., wants the Senate to fast-track the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act, she announced Wednesday alongside leaders of the ENA and American College of Emergency Physicians. She is introducing the bill in the Senate after it passed the U.S. House of Representatives in April 2021 with bipartisan support, including 38 Republicans. (March 2022)
- State - (Texas) While there are currently no federal laws that specifically target workplace violence in health care, there is a pending bill in the Texas legislature that would require violence prevention plans. HB 326, introduced by State Reps. Donna Howard (D-Austin), Stephanie Klick (R-Fort Worth), Drew Darby (R-San Angelo), Four Price (R-Amarillo) and Ina Minjarez (D-San Antonio) would require health care providers to create committees to prevent workplace violence and to offer medical treatment and other services after a violent incident. (Did not pass during the 87th Session)
- Midroll
- Segment 3 - We’ve Identified the Problem, so now WHAT?!
- Two sides to every story
- Conservative View
- Conservatives believe the Second Amendment gives people the right to bear arms. They firmly believe that individuals have the right to defend themselves and we shouldn’t have to rely on government agencies to do it for us. Conservatives don’t think that additional laws like requiring background checks to buy ammo online will prevent crime. They think giving more guns to law-abiding citizens will prevent gun violence.
- Liberal View
- Liberals believe that the Second Amendment doesn’t explicitly give the people the right to bear arms, but it does allow the state to create and keep a militia to protect us from a corrupt government. They believe it is the local and federal government’s duty to protect citizens. Stricter gun control laws will protect our communities from gun violence.
- How the hell do we fix the problem?
- Common Sense Gun Control
- Pros
- Lowers Firearm-Related Deaths
- Decrease Domestic Violence
- Increase Public Confidence
- The main argument for gun control is that it would reduce violent crime and shootings, especially in urban areas. Guns make it much easier to kill people. As well as killing others, guns also make it easier for people to commit suicide and kill themselves.
- Cons
- Gun ownership is a fundamental civil right, irrespective of the US Constitution. All other arguments regarding gun ownership are therefore irrelevant.
- The Second Amendment to the US Constitution clearly guarantees the right to possess firearms by individual citizens, the people who dispute this are misinterpreting the US Constitution. This right has been upheld by the courts on many occasions.
- Gun possession by individuals is vital for legitimate purposes such as self-defense and hunting and should not be interfered with by the authorities.
- Guns can deter criminals and reduce crime without ever being used.
- Gun ownership acts as an “equalizer” for women, who are then able to deter or defend against attacks by stronger, more aggressive men.
- Gun ownership by both individuals and militias provide security for the American people against foreign invasion and also government tyranny—if the American people were disarmed and some kind of dictatorship emerged, the people would be at its mercy.
- If gun use is restricted, then criminals and murderers will just use different weapons, such as knives.
- Proposals
- raising the minimum age to buy semi automatic weapons
- banning high-capacity magazines
- passing safe storage laws
- strengthening background checks
- More Guns/Armed Public/Armed Teachers
- What does the data say? Does more guns make us safe?
- Gun availability is a risk factor for homicide in the United States. Multiple studies have shown that where there are more guns in homes, communities, states, and regions within the United States, individuals are at a higher risk for firearm homicide.
- Where there are higher levels of gun ownership, there are more gun suicides and accidental gun deaths. States with higher gun ownership have far higher firearm suicides, where non-firearm suicides are comparable. Suicide attempts with firearms are most often fatal.
- Where there are more guns, there is a greater propensity for aggressive behavior and violence.
- 9% of American adults self-report both having impulsive angry behavior and possessing firearms.
- Motorists who have a gun in their vehicle are more likely to express road rage
- Texans convicted of serious crimes were 4.8 times more likely to threaten someone with a
firearm If they had a concealed carry license.
- In 2014, nearly eight times more people were shot and killed in arguments than by civilians
trying to stop a crime.
- In 20% of cases where Law Enforcement officers are killed in the line of duty, it is with their own or their partner’s gun.
- The gravest danger for women is an abusive partner with a gun. Of females killed with a firearm, two-thirds were killed by an intimate partner.
- A woman’s chances of being killed increases over 5-fold when her abuser has access to a gun.
- States that require a background check for every handgun sale have 38% fewer women shot to death by their intimate partners.
- Bans (assault weapons/high capacity magazines)
- “Guns don't kill people, people kill people”
- Does Assault Weapon Bans Work?
- When we had a ban on those kinds of weapons (1994-2004) we saw a 25% reduction in gun violence associated with those kinds of slaughters.
- Recent research shows that in the decade after the ban was lifted, mass killing fatalities increased dramatically. In the last five years, if you don’t count the pandemic year, mass shooting fatalities in which assault-style rifles were used have mushroomed.
- During the 10-year period the federal ban was in effect, mass shooting fatalities were 70 percent less likely to occur than either before or after the ban.
- Mental Health
- More funding?
- More facilities?
- Equitable access
- Affordable
- More Doors/Metal Detectors/Smart Schools?!
- Thoughts and Prayers?!
- More Training
- Teachers
- Healthcare Workers
- Police
- Resilience Training (see end of outline)
- Situational Awareness
- Gun Training
- Legislation
- Laws/Acts
- H.R. 7910, The Protecting Our Kids Act
- H.R. 3480 S.1819, The Extreme Risk Protection Order Act
- H.R. 8 & S. 529, Expanding and Strengthening Brady Background Checks
- Equal Access to Justice for Victims of Gun Violence Act
- Federal Protections for Healthcare Workers
- Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act
- Wrap-Up
- Brandy
- For me, BradyUnited.org, summed it up best. “Take Action not Sides!”
- Despite the deep division in the US; we should find, focus on, and then take action on the things we DO agree on. Such as the mental health crisis in this country.
- For example, Pew Research finds that 85 percent of Republicans and 90 percent of Democrats believe people with mental illnesses should not be allowed to purchase guns. Additionally, 70 percent of Republicans and 92 percent of Democrats support background checks for private and gun show sales.
- Nic
- Outro w/Music
References
Resilience Training
The American Psychological Association 10 strategies to build resilience
- Make connections.
- Individuals need to build positive relationships with family members, friends, and others who can provide support. It can also be beneficial to help others in their times of need.
- Avoid seeing crises as insurmountable.
- Highly stressful events happen to everyone, but what counts is how one interprets and responds to them. Try looking beyond the present to how future circumstances may be better. Note any subtle ways in which you might already feel somewhat better as you deal with difficult situations. These are your coping mechanisms and can be consciously applied when you face future challenges.
- Accept that change is a part of living.
- As you get older, certain goals may no longer be attainable as a result of adverse situations. When you accept that some circumstances cannot be changed, it allows you to focus on other circumstances that you can influence.
- Move toward your goals.
- Develop some realistic goals. Do something regularly. Ask yourself, "What's one thing I know I can accomplish today that helps me grow?"
- Take decisive actions.
- Rather than detach completely from problems and stresses or wish they would just go away, take decisive actions to improve the situation as best you can. Avoidance is not the answer.
- Look for opportunities for self-discovery.
- People often learn something about themselves and grow in some respect as a result of struggling with loss, rejection, or disappointment. As you’re going through a hardship, remember that there may be benefits in the long run.
- Nurture a positive view of yourself.
- Have confidence in your ability to solve problems and trust in your instincts. Believing in yourself in a positive way helps build your overall resilience.
- Keep things in perspective.
- Even when facing very painful events, try to consider the stressful situation in a broader context and keep a long-term perspective. Avoid blowing the event out of proportion.
- Maintain a hopeful outlook.
- An optimistic outlook enables you to expect that good things will happen in your life. Try visualizing what you want, rather than worrying about what you fear.
- Take care of yourself.
- Pay attention to your own needs and feelings. Engage in activities that you enjoy and find relaxing. Exercise regularly. Taking care of yourself to keep your mind and body primed to deal with situations that require resilience