James Holmes, mass murderer, Colorado movie theater shooting[/caption]Carol Forsloff — "Why are so many gun advocates being executed with single gunshots? It is certainly not their fellow gun enthusiasts. Perhaps the daisy hugging liberal nutjobs??? (We now have Obama saying he loves guns too by reason of his saying that he goes skeet shooting at Camp David "all the time", with photographic evidence as well. Barbarian in Chief??) Comments such as these offer the question: Does our language increase the risk of violence?
Name-calling abuses abound on social media. This individual, an anonymous poster on an article about a parent being heckled during a Congressional hearing on gun control, takes the moniker "Skip to my Lu." It is, however, the overall language of name-calling and verbal violence that enters the gun debate, most often from gun advocates declaring their rights in aggressive terms. But what are the underlying features of verbal confrontations and the psychological features of the debate that might reflect the risks from those who demand their rights yet do so using words that are designed to inflame, to hurt, to abuse?
An anonymous poster on an article about newspapers printing maps showing gun owners had this to say, infusing, as often occurs, religious statements among the epithets and name-calling abuses: "You may well be one of those who have taken God out of the schools and society by asking HIM to vacate or be invisible in spirit? I dunno. But, I do know MANY places and schools where he formerly resided are now a Devil's den. HINT: when you are among the Devils, it is best to have a defender accompany you. I have TWO...my guns and my LORD ...both are with me ALL the time."
So the non-believer is placed into the gun rights group of those with "devilish" intent. On Facebook recently, a user called everyone who advocated gun control, many of whom are musicians who simply were responding to the lack of it in the United States, "communists" and therefore "dangerous".
But worse are those whose language escalates to threats, often seen in these tight verbal confrontations. It is that escalation that offers an atmosphere that creates additional stress for those involved in the gun debate.
In psychological lexicon, verbal abuse is "the use of language to manipulate, control, ridicule, insult, humiliate, belittle, vilify, and show disrespect and disdain to another, and is often a component of other types of abuse. All name calling, and epithets directed at another are abusive."
Although research is limited on the risks of verbal violence, what is known is that those who suffer abuse have a higher mortality rate, especially when the underlying verbal threats are translated into physical ones. Verbal mistreatment of children has been found to develop anxiety, depression, delayed mental development, and general health problems; and externalized behaviors that can produce aggressive behaviors in adulthood.
Many of the killers involved in mass shootings have had a history of abuse, at school or at home, bullying, and verbal violence. It is this language that helps to plant seeds of pain for children that over time can cause disturbance that evolves into a serious act of violence. Mass killers often see themselves as being victimized, then lash out against those perceived as being those believed to be responsible, even if that perception is distorted. They essentially feel a lack of support from others. Language becomes part of the fuel for the accumulation of hurts.
We are what we speak, write, and listen to, with words having consequences for the individual and the community. Social media gives language a permanent imprint, read by children and vulnerable adults. And it is therefore not true that "words can never hurt me" as recited in a childhood mantra, for words can impact people in hurtful ways, and one never knows when those words are transformed to killing in the mind of someone who has learned those patterns in childhood or who has adopted them through the interaction with others.
