A matter of great concern to many people in the US is the string of mass shootings that goes on year after year. They garner media attention. They shake people's confidence that they live in a good society if such things happen. They motivate calls for more restrictions on firearms.
Surely a key motivation for these shootings is the knowledge by the shooter that they will get attention. Call it fame or call it infamy -- people will notice them. The news stories and gruesome images resonate with certain angry men who realize that it could be their mug shot appearing all over the national news. News organizations give lurid details because they get attention and generate revenue when people view them. What motivates those viewers? Surely it's largely the thrill and horror of it -- a sort of prurient interest in violence.
One vital step we could take to prevent such shootings is to give them less publicity. We don't want to literally suppress the news, but a brief story giving just the location, the weapons, the count of those killed and wounded would convey what the public needs to know. No footage of the scene, no interviews with survivors or bereaved relatives, no mug shot of the perpetrator.
I think it's time to appreciate the gravity of the situation and apportion the blame. People who make such videos or decide to release them are directly responsible for future deaths. But they only do this because it makes them money. So the ultimate moral responsibility falls on each and every person who consumes such videos -- their viewing of it motivates the coverage, and the coverage motivates more perpetrators. The fact that there are millions of other viewers makes no difference -- each one should view it as their personal moral responsibility.
But we need to go beyond moral responsibility to decisive legal action. We should also make it illegal to make such stories, and illegal to view them. Even for viewers, a fine is not enough. A prison term of several years would be a fitting punishment for each act of viewing. Yes, you heard me right -- several years of prison for viewing sensational coverage of mass shootings. Surely I have lost my mind?
Consider for comparison the crime of simple viewing of child pornography. Society treats the viewing of such material as a serious crime calling for years in prison. This sentence is called for even when the viewer hasn't paid anybody, hasn't made anything, hasn't sent anything to others, hasn't made any comments encouraging the production of more, and even if the images in question have been viewed thousands of times by other people. The key rationale is that the viewing fuels a market for making more child pornography. But if you accept this rationale, the justification for similar penalties in the case of mass shootings is stronger.
Most child pornography is made to be traded within a small group of despicable people for their own purposes. Wider attention is irrelevant and often unwelcome, as it increases the chance that someone might recognize the children and get the makers in serious trouble. In contrast, mass shooters are directly motivated by the prospect that they will be famous. The news organizations that would make them famous are directly motivated by the revenue from the views of those who want to see it.
In an open, free society, the government does not interfere in people's lives unless there is a compelling reason to do so. The most common reason is that they are harming others.
Making child pornography is an example of child sex abuse and is rightly criminal for that reason. But the harm caused by viewing it is much less clear. Average people hate the idea of child pornography at a gut level and want to find justifications for stamping it out in any way they can. But if they are committed to civil liberties, they have to find a justification based in harm. People will often say that viewing child porn creates a market for more. The comparison with viewing news video of mass shootings makes it clear how flimsy and preposterous this is.
Other justifications offered for draconian punishment for child porn possession: Victims are harmed every time someone views a video -- this requires spooky action at a distance, as no one can draw a line from an act of private viewing to the head of the victim. Viewing child porn stands in for the crime of child sex abuse -- in fact, the correlation is not that strong and a free society does not punish people for things that are merely correlated with crimes. Viewing child porn will cause people to go on to molest children -- the relationship is far from clear and there is <some evidence in the opposite direction>. In any case, a free society does not punish people for reading or viewing things that might lead them to commit a crime.
There is no justification for the viewing of child pornography being a crime in a free society. It is a crime only because people hate pedophiles. A free society does not punish people it disapproves of if they aren't harming anyone else.
There is legitimate moral concern -- I tend to agree that viewing child porn for sexual gratification is a morally repulsive and disrespectful thing to do.
But there is also a legitimate moral concern about viewing sensational footage of mass shootings -- there a causal link with future violence is clear. Perhaps those who condemn pedophiles for viewing child porn should first look at their own moral failings. Individual citizens who want to prevent mass shootings could organize and lobby the news organizations, threatening to cancel subscriptions and shun the advertisers unless they stop giving such detailed attention to these stories. How many people do?
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