Should Gunshot Victim Photos Be Published? (1 Viewer)

[Optimus Prime]

Noah Pozner was the youngest victim of the Sandy Hook shootings. He was six years old. He was shot eleven times. His jaw was blown off. His left hand was blown off. I just think that bears mentioning in light of the discussion of whether or not all opinions deserve to be treated respectfully.

Would there have been real change regarding guns if these photos were published and covered by the media?

The funeral photos of Emmitt Till and the fire hose & dog footage are credited with changing national opinions and actions on civil rights

Would it be disrespectful? Exploitation? Sensationalism?
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..........Jefferies has hoisted the grim image aloft at city council meetings and sit-downs with lawmakers and watched as they turned their heads. She’s shown it to reporters who decline to include it in their stories. Jefferies says she’ll put the photo on a T-shirt if it means jolting the American public into action.

“I just can’t see myself talking about gun violence without showing what gun violence is,” Jefferies, 45, tells The Trace. “This image is burned into my memory bank. It doesn’t make sense for me to keep showing pictures of what she looked like before.”

Jefferies has become the unwitting pioneer of an ad hoc movement that seeks to compel lawmakers to acknowledge the grisly consequences of gun violence. Some observers argue that such shocking imagery is just what the gun safety effort needs.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris said last Friday that lawmakers should have been required to look at autopsy photos of the Sandy Hook victims before they voted against gun control measures proposed in the wake of that shooting.............

Abby Spangler, who founded the advocacy group Protest Easy Guns, says Jefferies is changing the nature of the debate over gun control. “Until she pulled out that photo, we’d been fighting this with arguments, truth, reality, statistics — everything under the sun to try to educate Americans,” Spangler says.

“She educated more Americans in one second with that photo than most people have for years in this movement. If 100 people came out tomorrow like Nardyne, showing the photographs of their children decimated by bullets, this nation would change.”...............

The Mother Who Wants Politicians to See Photos of Her Child's Bullet-Riddled Body

Nardyne Jefferies is the unwitting pioneer of an ad-hoc movement to get lawmakers to confront the grisly consequences of gun violence.

www.google.com

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

I think the effects of seeing the photos will have a chilling effect on some, but it will also desensitize others and that would make the debate even more polarizing. Think about how those that have seen the true effects of war and how they respond to violent actions. Also, think about those police officers that police high crime areas, they seem to be more likely to dehumanize the citizens they are sworn to protect.

 

[mikaloyd]

We would never have this photoshop without it

 

[superchuck500]

This same debate occurred after the Vegas shootings. The image of all the bodies on the field was haunting.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

I think the effects of seeing the photos will have a chilling effect on some, but it will also desensitize others and that would make the debate even more polarizing. Think about how those that have seen the true effects of war and how they respond to violent actions. Also, think about those police officers that police high crime areas, they seem to be more likely to dehumanize the citizens they are sworn to protect.

i think this is correct
it would have both positive and adverse effect
it would def be overused, but it might move people to understand the toll of violence more immediately

but i also think the vast majority of the public will self-censor - i avoid pictures of death or even 'bad' violence - i always turn away from images of 9/11, i don't go to 'those' pages on reddit
but then plenty would flock to those images and will look on it like death porn

but maybe it's unavoidable - i think we'll continue the drift to more of an image based or infused media environment.
right now crime scene images are usually some police tape in foreground, a few squad cars, some uniformed cops talking and maybe a grieving relative or friend or two
actual photos of actual content would have way more impact

 

[Jeff]

The death porn crowd already gets their fix. Show it. Depending on how it's handled, the overall effect has more room for a "positive" response than a "negative" one. People stay disengaged because everything feels more than arms length away. While we are at it, show our tax money at work in Yemen and in other places too.

 

[UndeadSnoopy]

The death porn crowd

This is what worries me.

When do we all become "The death porn crowd"?

You can watch murders on Facebook now?

I also think of children that grow up staring at their phones.

What are they seeing and how is it affecting them?

 

[Jeff]

This is what worries me.

When do we all become "The death porn crowd"?

You can watch murders on Facebook now?

I also think of children that grow up staring at their phones.

What are they seeing and how is it affecting them?

Not trying to be flippant but not having kids growing up while staring at their phones would be a start. I would think that helps play into an emotional disconnect especially if the phone becomes a parent substitute. Children and adults with a reasonable amount of empathy aren't going to seek out that kind of content and would probably try to actively avoid it.

In all seriousness, I really don't want violent imagery plastered everywhere but at the same time I can't help but think as a society we work hard to provide a buffer so we don't have to deal with the negative consequences of our actions (or inaction). It's that kind of buffer that allows people to state with actual belief that "we are better than this" when sum of the equation says "no, this is who we are." Change doesn't come without honest appraisal.

On a side note: Facebook has gotten better about policing imagery and video content but things get posted in real time so it's tough. Every social media platform has a hard road ahead if they actually try to mod it. Reddit, as mentioned above, is one of the mainstream apps I'd worry about the most as a parent. It's a great resource but it has some crazy dark rabbit holes...though Reddit's starting to be a bit more proactive in policing as ad dollars get poured into it's business model.

 

[porculator]

I definitely think it would have some of the intended effect. In general we are too disconnected from the truth and the consequences of our actions.
That said, this particular case would steer the conversation to restricting assault weapons which I understand are a juicy target for the gun control crowd but a blip on the radar of overall gun violence. If the overall goal is to reduce total gun deaths then the focus should be on keeping handguns out of criminals hands. Hundreds of thousands of guns are stolen per year. Stealing a gun is a gateway crime to shooting someone with it. Biometric locks alone would prevent thousands of murders. But unlike assault weapon violence, we are pretty desensitized to handgun shootings so I'm not sure its really a priority to prevent it.

 

[Goatman Saint]

If they are minors and have parent consent sure. If they are not minors certainly.

Goes right along with the military. Show the flag draped coffins on tv. Right now the horror and death of these situations is sanitized and hidden. Maybe it would make it more real than some.

My last active shooter training had the security tape footage of some of these. It becomes real clear, real quick that something needs to be done. And before someone says liberal anti gun crazy towards me, I grew up in Montana. Was a member of the NRA until Columbine and Heston’s performance. If there are under 50 firearms in my immediate family I’d be stunned. (It would mean my father in law is downsizing)

But after seeing this on the news, active shooter training, coming to my school and seeing cops washing the blood off the playground from a murder earlier that morning, 3 under 12 year olds killed by gunfire in the last 15 years, having a gang shooting spree on the road that borders our playground with shots being fired towards the school, 2 students of mine being shot while sleeping and at this point 5 active shootings happening during school hours in the blocks immediately bordering my school during school hours, yeah, I’m ready for something to be done. Not every idiot needs to have the ability to get ahold of guns

 

[Optimus Prime]

Not about gunshot victims this article is about the drowned father and daughter but similar arguments for and against of showing tragic photos
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.........So the image gets shared on social media, and is seen repeatedly on cable television and sometimes in the pages of newspapers.

As it circulates, we believe it will acquire enough force and familiarity that our political leaders will have to do something different — change policies, reverse course, revise their own understanding of the severity of a problem.

For more than a century, this metaphor has been in operation behind the scenes whenever journalists, or activists, hold up photographs to the world, and say: This is a truth you must acknowledge...........

Of course, one doesn’t have to do this work. Images of tragedy that arrive in a divisive political context often have an off-ramp.

You may look at this photo and think that its deep message is “We are all hoping for a better life and will take extraordinary risks on behalf of those we love.” But someone else will probably say, “People shouldn’t cross borders without permission.”

The drowning becomes a kind of punishment, a river stands in for ideas of human authority, and the photograph doesn’t break through anything. It merely reiterates an old and cherished belief: Bad things happen to those who break the rules........

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/we-used-to-think-photos-like-this-could-change-the-world-what-needs-to-change-is-who-we-are/2019/06/26/53c9087a-982d-11e9-830a-21b9b36b64ad_story.html

 

[donato]

The death porn thing is a real concern. In Mexico they have several daily mini newspapers that cater to that with dead / maimed / disfigured people on the cover with headlines that are supposed to be funny or a play on words. It’s disgusting.

As far as the original post I think it’s a good idea if done responsibly. By that I mean first and foremost with the permission of the family only.

 

[Optimus Prime]

I agree with FTP

The only thing that has a chance of changing things is having a modern day Mamie Till. Americans need to see, really see, what gun violence looks like. It is going to take a courageous, courageous soul to do it because I don't know of any parent who would be able to muster the strength to have the images of their loved one forever etched in history's mind.

Imagine if the parents of Sandy Hook got together and agreed to release the crime scene photos of Sandy Hook. Children, babies, ravaged with bullets. And I can't blame them for not doing so. Because I can't fathom the thought of it.

But, that is what it will take. Americans need a visual wake-up call, the same one Mamie Till gave us those years ago. We need to be confronted with the images and dare any American to turn away from their conscience and shame the ones who do. Those are the stakes it seems.

 

[MLU]

I'd like to see them on a billboard across the street from the homes of everyone who has ever voted against gun control legislation, has ever worked for a firearm manufacturer and the NRA.

 

[N.O.Bronco]

If you think the reason why every regime that has relied upon the American public to remain tolerant of a war they were invested in tried to control journalists and censor/hide photos of death simply to protect families, I have some swampland that I could broker for you at a very reasonable price.

Simply put, just look at the people who are most invested in this question and how they've reacted.