gun violence effects in a community

1. Has your community been directly affected by gun violence/mass shootings? Discuss the affects you have noted.
   My community has not dealt with any mass shootings, but gun violence and shootings are common in the metro area. We don’t have frequent shootings, but they have increased in recent years. Suicide by gun is also most common method for suicide in my community.
2. Discuss what you believe to be the greatest risk factor(s) in your community that could be associated with a potential for violence.
   Risk factors in my community are drug use and gun availability due to it being a big hunting community. Also being a farming community, the stress of farming and middle age men is a risk factor for suicide.
3. What are your thoughts about the Predictive Firearm Violence Risk Scale?
   The Predictive Firearm Violence Risk Scale is a scale that developed to determine future firearm violence in an area or from an individual (Bakes, 2017). The scale goes over different criteria and determines points for each criterion based on severity. Serious fighting with in the past 6 months, friend weapon carrying, community environment, and firearm threats are all areas assessed in the 10-point SaFETy score. Each 1 point was associated with an increase in the risk for future firearm violence (Bakes, 2017).
4. Will you use this scale in your practice? Why or why not?
   I think this is a good starting point scale to use during an assessment of a patient after determining accessibility of firearms for the individual. This determines risky behavior that may lead to firearm violence (Goldstick, et al., 2017).
5. What type of changes has your community made to help improve safety?
   My community has incorporated gun safety classes as well as education for safe gun storage. There is also more education on mental health and suicide that has helped people assess accessibility to different methods of suicide. With guns being number one method in our community, gun education has been a huge topic for safety.
6. What are your thoughts about the Columbine shooter’s mother’s TED Talk?
   I can not image grieving the loss of a son to suicide after not knowing he was dealing with a mental illness as well as dealing with a community mass shooting and guilt he caused before his suicide. I think it is amazing that she took this experience and is educating people regardless of the attacks and guilt she has felt from the actions of her son. Getting information out to the public on mental illness and the ways that it can contribute to violence and risky behavior is vital to ending mass shooting and suicides. It is true that many times loved ones do not know that someone close to them is dealing with mental illness and contemplating suicide. Being aware of the warning signs and actions displayed by the individual can help prevent suicide and other violence towards others (Parekh, 2018).

Response 2

Gun Violence and Mass Shooting

The United States of America represents one of the world’s developed countries that the rate of gun violence has substantially elevated. Within the gun violence, mainly homicides, contribute to disparities in life expectancy between white and minority group African American (Ludwig, 2017).
This discussion aims to elaborate on gun violence, mass shooting, and to answer the following questions:
1. Has your community been directly affected by gun violence/mass shootings? Discuss the effects you have noted.
2. Discuss what you believe to be the most significant risk factor(s) in your community that could be associated with violence.