Violence is seen as a major public health problem, and exposure to it can affect the emotional and behavioral behaviors of a person; it can also lead to substance use. The relationship between witnessing violence in the home, community, or school, is highly linked to, not just the use of substances, but the major abuse of them in people of all ages. The short-term and long-term effects of exposure to violence are changed when a weapon is present as to when it is not. In a sample done of 1670 youth, (51.5% female; 48.5% male), in 79 different neighborhoods, the effects of witnessing violence raised the rate on alcohol and marijuana use drastically. Also, illicit drug use was repressed in the short-term effects, but was notable in the long-term; however, violence without a weapon was most important for substance abuse at all time points (Zimmerman; …show more content…
The most recent school shooting, committed by a 19 year old. This is just one of the many mass shootings that have occurred in America, yet, nothing ever changes. It is easy to forget how often this actually has happened. Since 1982, there have been 97 mass shootings in public places across the country. These killings unfold in 34 states, and 58 of these shootings have occurred since 2006. Seven of them took place in 2012 alone. For example, July of 2012, a massacre at a movie theater in Colorado. Next comes the unthinkable at an elementary school in Connecticut. Those are just two of the “most famous” mass shootings that America has seen in the recent years. A study was done regarding the information on the attackers, types of weapons used, and number of victims injured and killed. 62 different cases were looked at from 1982-2012, and it found that of the 143 guns that were obtained by the murderers, more than three quarters were possessed legally. In Red Lake, Minnesota in 2005, a perpetrator used a .40-caliber Glock to slaughter students, as well as the shooter did in Aurora, Colorado that was mentioned before. In the Connecticut massacre, the attacker used a .223 Bushmaster semi-automatic assault rifle as he slaughtered twenty school children and six adults. The trend between all of these? More than half of the cases involved school or