CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE A Thematic Content Analysis of U. State Policies Post the Incidence of Mass- Shootings A graduate project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Master of Social Work By Kristina Navarro May 2020 The graduate project of Kristina Navarro is approved: _______________________________________ __________ Dr. Ashley Date _______________________________________ ___________ Dr. Decker Date _______________________________________ ___________ Dr.
Willner, Chair Date California State University, Northridge ii Dedication This research is dedicated to the innocent lives taken in the horrific events of mass-shootings. May each and every one of you rest in peace while the rest of us remain committed to fighting against the injustices which lead to your demise. For the families and loved ones of the deceased, for the survivors, and surrounding communities, may we all become wiser and stronger together. In addition, this work is dedicated to my brother Andrew.
My dear Andrewsha, may you see the goodness in the world, spread kindness, and always stay curious. May you always find strength within your heart and find your life’s fulfillment in giving back more than you take. iii Table of Contents Signature Page ii Dedication iii Abstract v Introduction 1 Incidence and History 4 Methods 12 Results 14 Discussion 32 Limitations 37 References 38 Appendix A: Mass-Shooting Index 45 iv Abstract A Thematic Content Analysis of U. State Policies Post the Incidence of Mass- Shootings By Kristina Navarro Master of Social Work Purpose: To explore firearm legislative initiatives as they relate to the incidence of mass shootings in the United States of America.
Methods: A thematic content analysis was used to evaluate the firearm legislative initiatives in Florida, Texas, Washington, and California. The following themes were explored throughout the study: legislative initiatives aimed to loosen or strengthen firearm laws, bills aimed to strengthen background checks, bills which mention mental illness or mental health services, and bills which generate new funding to decrease the incidence of mass shootings. Results: The findings show that CA has both the highest incidence of mass shootings and also the most restrictive firearm legislative initiatives written into law. In response to mass shootings, Texas has loosened gun restrictions throughout the state.
Both FL and WA have written restrictive legislature into law in response to mass shootings. Discussion and Implications: Restrictive legislature at the state level appears to have minimal impact in decreasing the incidence of mass shootings. In order to test the efficacy of firearm related legislature, laws must be evaluated at the federal level. Keywords: Firearm Legislature, Mass-shootings, Thematic Analysis of Firearm Legislature v Introduction A mass killing is defined as the homicide of four or more victims (Fox & DeLateur, 2013).
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) an active shooter intrinsically implies that both law enforcement and citizens affected by the incident have the potential to influence the outcomes of the event based on their responses (Blair & Schweit, 2014). Department of Justice/FBI, U. Department of Education, along with the U. Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency have all readily agreed that an active shooter is defined as – “an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area” (Blair & Schweit, 2014).
The term “active shooter” has become an all too common phrase used in daily American language, enough so that most large organizations such as school campuses, and large corporations have emergency plans in place to train their inhabitants how to react in an event of a shooting. On December 14, 2012 an active shooter walked onto the grounds of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut, and subsequently murdered twenty children, six adults, finally ending the shooting spree by taking his own life (Lopez & Sukumar, 2019). Since then, there have been more than 2,206 mass shootings, resulting in at least 2, 485 deaths, leaving 9, 243 wounded victims (Lopez & Sukumar, 2019). Such senseless acts have taken place in schools, university campuses, night clubs, music festivals, food festivals, Walmart shopping centers, places of worship, and most recently a Texas interstate highway.
As the rates of mass shootings continue to rise, it has become clear that mass shootings have become an all-American epidemic. Previous studies have shown that firearm suicide and homicide rates are significantly higher in the U. when compared to other industrialized nations (Towers, Gomez-Lievano, 1 Khan, Mubayi, & Castillo-Chavez, 2015). In fact, these increased rates appear to be related to the higher rates of firearm ownership in the U.
compared to other industrialized nations (Towers et al. A 2013 FBI study on active shooters between 2000-2013 concluded that the incidence of mass shootings has been steadily increasing, from 6.4 annual incidents during the first 7 years of the study, to 16.4 annual incidents during the last 7 years of the study (Blair & Schweit, 2014). This shows us a 10% increase within a 7 year span. Since then, the prevalence of mass shootings in America continue to rise, 2017 having the highest rates known to date , this being due to the extremely high number of fatalities caused by the violent shooting in Las Vegas leaving 58 concert goers dead (Wilson, 2019; Miranda, 2019).
These numbers illustrate a continuous rise in the incidence of mass shootings without any end in sight. Purpose of the Study Following such events public outcries from everyday citizens, politicians, and media outlets are often swayed towards: the need for greater gun control or the need for greater resources in mental health (Towers et al. The Department of Homeland Security has published a resource guide for U. residents on how to survive a mass shooting, urging those who encounter an active shooter to either: run, hide, or fight (Ready.
Such survival plans leave an unsurmountable amount of room for many lives lost, what this country needs is a plan on how to prevent these horrific events from occurring. In recent years research on mass shootings have slowly started to accumulate, however, limited systemic research is available on the trends and themes of the political and societal climates in the United States which may influences the continuous incidence of mass shootings. Data obtained by Mother Jones (Follaman, Aronsen, & Pan, 2019) has concluded that the following four states have the 2 highest incidence of mass shootings since 1982: California, Texas, Washington, and Florida. Due to these findings, the present study aims to systemically evaluate the state legislature of Florida, Texas, Washington and California in reference to the following themes: legislative changes aimed at restricting access to firearms; legislative changes aimed to loosen access to firearms; legislative initiatives aimed at prohibiting access to firearms to individuals with a mental illness.
Additionally, the research evaluates the political party association of the individuals who proposed the legislative changes, along with an evaluation of the lobbyist who supported the initiatives. 3 Incidence and History Following the mass shootings at Columbine High School in 1999, media sources were quick to correlate mental illness, guns, and the use of psychotropic medications to the actions taken by the shooter Eric Harris (Metzl & MacLeish, 2015). Yet, limited population-based evidence supports this notion. In fact, less than 3% - 5% of all U.
crimes involve individuals previously diagnosed with a mental illness (Metz & MacLeish, 2015). Overall, mass shootings account for a relatively small portion of gun violence in the U. According to the Pew Research Center, 14, 542 (37%) of murders in 2017were related to the use of firearms, while 23,854 (60%) were related to suicide with the use of firearms, and the remaining 6% were either unintentional (486), involved law enforcement (553), or had undetermined circumstances (338) (Gramlich, 2019). In 2018 alone, there has been a total of 373 fatalities as a direct result of mass shootings, making up a very small fraction of fatalities involving firearms (Gramlich, 2019).
Therefore, it is difficult to draw a statistical modeling or predictability based on such infrequent occurrences. While the total number of fatalities may be considered low when compared to the total annual deaths involving firearms, the importance of the increased incidence of mass shootings should not go unnoticed. It should be noted that the United States and Mexico are the only two countries in the world which guarantee its citizens “the right to bear arms” in their constitutions (Limieux, 2019). All other nations have amended their constitutions over time in order to make gun ownership a privilege, which must be earned through a licensing process authority (Limieux, 2019).
It is due to the second amendment that many gun owning Americans often find it difficult to promote changes in firearm legislation (Limieux, 2019). Ideology regarding gun ownership is also directly linked to the political party that citizens identify with (Limieux, 4 2019). Evaluation of the political influences of assault rifle legislation may provide some insight regarding the motivations behind the U.’s all too lenient right to bear arms. Policy and Politics In response to the incidence of mass shootings politicians are urged to make policy adjustments in order to better protect and serve the innocent lives of American occupants.
Previous studies looking at the impact of mass shootings on gun policy have found that following a mass shooting there is a 15% increase in the number of firearm bills introduced within a state in the year following a mass shooting (Luca, Malhotra, & Poliquin, 2019). Luca et al. (2019) established a pattern in the passing of annual firearm legislation based on the political party in charge. Looser gun legislation is nearly doubled in the year following a mass shooting in states that have Republican controlled legislation (Luca et al.
While there appears to be no significant effect of mass shootings on laws enacted in Democratic- controlled legislation (Luca et al. The evaluation of bills that have been passed into law are found to be dependent upon the political party in power. Indicating that when Republicans are in office, gun legislation is more likely to loosen and favor those in support of the second amendment. Therefore, it is important to evaluate the financial incentives, political affiliations, and the ideology of the party in office during the highest incidence of mass shootings.
Following the Newtown shooting states such as New York and Maryland passed laws restricting access to firearms to individuals who have been diagnosed with a mental illness (McGinty, Wester, Jarlenski, & Barry, 2014). Additionally, both states also passed legislation which banned access to assault rifles regardless of mental status (McGinty et al. In the case of Maryland, a law was signed to strengthen the ban on assault weapons and prohibits 5 high capacity magazines. Similarly, the state of New York strengthened the ban on assault rifles and restricted magazines to seven bullets (Yourish, Andrews, Buchunan, & McLean, 2013).
While these changes may be perceived as progressive, there was a total of 1,500 state firearm bills introduced the year following the Newtown shooting, 178 of those bills were able to pass at least one chamber of state legislature, while only 109 of those bills have been written into law ( Yourish et al. A striking fact regarding the laws that were passed is, only thirty-nine of the passed laws strengthened gun restriction, while seventy of those laws work to loosen gun restriction (Yourish et al. This highlights the importance of investigating the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations behind the individuals who are responsible for passing these legislations. While there are many arguments against stricter gun control in America, research looking at the success of gun control in other nations have shown some significant improvements.
In response to the 1999 mass shooting in Port Arthur, Australia, which left thirty-five dead and thirty-seven injured, the nation took major steps in order to enforce stricter gun control laws (Limieux, 2014). Numerous studies have investigated the effect of those laws and found that the rate of firearm homicides decreased by 7.