Click. Bang. These sounds are heard a lot in the United States of America, followed by devastating consequences. Gun violence is a problem in today’s world. The sales of firearms in the state of New Hampshire continue to rise: handgun sales rose 65% in 2020 according to Robert Quinn, New Hampshire’s safety Commissioner. But why don’t lots of other countries have the same problem? Is it our country’s especially violent history?

The media are the ones to blame for this epidemic. They focus on the negative events that are happening, and many positive stories with happy endings are left out; stories about violence and divorces and suicides are covered instead. This is because these stories are more engaging for viewing and listening audiences. The problem with these stories is the fear it creates throughout the American public. When a robbery is shown on the news, ‘John Doe’ worries if his family is next. Then, when the head of the NRA comes to his town to make a very convincing speech, he decides to buy a gun for protection and keeps it in his home. Having the gun in his home is potentially dangerous. His son ‘Jim Doe’ can find the gun, bring it to his school, and cause cataclysmic damage.

Do you know this quote: “Fear is the greatest motivator.” -Bill Dixon? That is a perfect way to describe why the media choose to focus on the negative. When you hear about a shooting, you get scared. So, next time you turn on the TV, you first open the news channel to make sure nothing is happening in your neighborhood. When nothing is, you feel relieved, and when something does happen, you remain fearful. Before you know it, you’re a regular viewer, and that’s what news companies want: viewers. A news flash about a new speed bump being installed isn’t going to prompt the same emotional response as the kidnapping of a 6-year-old child. For this selfish reason, news corporations feed into the violence.

Because the media is everywhere– from Facebook to CNN.com to our local newspapers and TV channels– it makes its impact much more widespread. Newspapers delivered to your front door that your father reads with his coffee cup in his hand aren’t the only places it’s spread. Now, kids have access to it too from the screens of their smartphones and tablets; the stories spread EVERYWHERE.

The fear created by these newscasts is the root cause of the gun violence problem. In Canada, Statista.com says 263 people were victims of gun homicides in 2019. In the United States, BBC News says 14,400. This shows a distinct correlation to the news stories in the two countries. One post on globalnews.ca told of how a “London councilor petitions for temporary traffic calming in detours near Adelaide St. and Oxford St.,” and a post from the States on U.S. News and World Report sadly states that a “Pickup Crashes Into Phoenix Bus Stop; 1 Killed, 1 Injured.” The correlation between news reports and the number of gun homicides is clearly there.

“Well,” you may say, “What about the United States’ especially bloody history?” That’s a good question, considering the savage nature of our revolutionary and civil wars. But Canadians had many vicious struggles in their past, such as the frequent conflicts in the 1800s over Protestantism versus Roman Catholicism. According to World Population Review, Germany (a country well known for the brutal Holocaust Genocide) has 0.99 gun deaths per every 100,000 residents it had by 2021. The U.S. has 12.21.

The media must stop focusing on the bad, and share with the Americans the good things happening in their country. We are already dealing with a deadly disease, we don’t need to continue feeding all the fear that controls our society.