In the last two days, the United States has seen two major shootings on the east coast. One in a school in South Carolina, and one in a mall in Maryland. Both instances, as well as most shootings in the U.S. were covered by news stations across the country, and this has made the country aware of their existence.

Some would say this is important knowledge to have, when in fact, these news reports only cause more violence and shootings. As soon as they occur, the press gets up in arms about gun law reform and who to blame. The issue with this is that all the publicity can cause people to correlate violence with being remembered. This is an easy and dangerous way for some people to make their mark in history, and the rate of these violent incidents in accelerating due to mass media coverage.

This doesn’t only apply to shootings, it also affects drug use. After the story of the Florida man who ingested bath salts broke, the rate of search for bath salts on google.com increased exponentially. More often than not, this will cause more people to experiment with these dangerous chemicals rather than less. This is because the only people affected by reports such as these are those who don’t already know the dangerous activities exist, i.e., most of the country.

The important thing to keep in mind is that the best way to prevent these shootings, which are almost becoming a normal part of a weekly news report, is to ignore them. The infamy associated with these events can only cause more harm than good.