The possible long-term impacts of high levels of stress in early life are emerging in large-scale correlational studies, and the biological mechanisms that may be at work are being studied in animal models such as mice, rats and macaque monkeys.

…Cameron has studied how the stress of growing up in unsettled, sometimes violent circumstances affects the development of young brains and increases the risk for destructive behavior and long-term health problems in adult life. Cameron and Earls emphasized that early intervention, both at the community and the personal levels, can make an important difference in a child’s life prospects.

…Childhood experiences, both good and bad, can affect the developing architecture of the brain. …Experiences and environment also determine whether neural circuits involved with motor skills, behavior control, memory and other functions form robustly. Experiences also can influence gene expression in the developing brain by affecting the production of proteins that bind to DNA in the neurons, Cameron said. Scientists are just starting to understand such “epigenetic” factors in brain development.

When the body’s response to stress — the rush of adrenaline, the increase in heart rate, the elevation of certain hormone levels — is constantly active, Cameron said, the result is “toxic stress” that can reduce the number of neural connections in the cognitive areas of the brain at a time when they should be proliferating.

…Communities were being described by race and class, Earls said, but his team wanted to know how they functioned: Are children exposed to good supervision? Would neighbors intervene if they saw children skipping school or spray-painting graffiti on a wall? Or showing disrespect to an adult?

The most important influence on a neighborhood’s crime rate, the researchers found, was the neighbors’ sense of “agency” or willingness to intervene on behalf of the common good. Based on detailed interviews with 8,782 residents representing each of the 343 neighborhoods in the study, the researchers were able to assign a “collective efficacy” value for each neighborhood. That combined measure of informal social control, cohesion and trust proved to be a robust predictor of lower violence rates in a neighborhood.

…”We found that collective efficacy was, indeed, operating as a protective factor,” he said.

The researchers also found that the benefits of collective efficacy go beyond easing violence. It also seems to be associated with more use of parks and recreational spaces in neighborhoods, initiation of sexual activity at later ages among youths, and even less obesity and fewer admissions to hospitals for asthma attacks. While such findings are based on correlations rather than cause-and-effect, the study does suggest that the general welfare of a neighborhood improves when people have a greater sense of social control.

…”When given an opportunity which is structured and self-guided and responsible and dignifies and respects children, there is a tremendous opportunity to curb the bad influences and produce more positive outcomes,” [Earls said.]

Experts Describe Long-Term Impacts of Stress on the Young Brain | AAAS – The World’s Largest General Scientific Society

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Youth with high levels of community violence exposure reported more fears, anxiety, internalizing behavior, and negative life experiences than those with low exposure. No depression or externalizing behavior differences were observed. In a psychophysiological assessment in which adolescents watched a montage of media violence, youth exposed to high levels of community violence had lower baseline heart rates than those with low exposure. There were no between-group differences in physiologic reactivity. Regression analyses revealed that community violence exposure predicted post-traumatic stress and separation anxiety symptoms. The results suggest a significant link between community violence exposure and anxiety symptomatology.

Emotional and Behavioral Impact of Exposure to Community Violence in Inner-City Adolescents: Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology: Vol 30, No 2

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Victims of these tragedies are not limited to those men, women, and children killed, injured, or present during these horrific events. The consequences of gun violence are more pervasive and affect entire communities, families, and children. With more than 25% of children witnessing an act of violence in their homes, schools, or community over the past year, and more than 5% witnessing a shooting, it becomes not just an issue of gun regulation, but also of addressing the impact on those who have been traumatized by such violence (Finkelhor et al., 2009).

…The consequences of exposure to violence on child development are very real. Youth exposed to chronic trauma can experience inhibited brain development, producing a lasting impact on life outcomes. Likely a result of such exposure, participants noted numerous skill deficits among the children and youth they serve who live in neighborhoods that have high rates of poverty and crime. …Much of this violence and aggression is further exacerbated by emotional overload from exposure to violence. Children and youth exposed to violence experience significant stress, and often struggle to identify and regulate their emotions, as a result of developmental impacts from their frequent exposure to trauma.

The Impact of Gun Violence on Children, Families, & Communities – CWLA

In terms of the impact of gun violence on children, families, and communities…

Focusing on the few who might reproduce the violence is akin to missing the forest for the trees here.

– In a November 2017 review of mass shootings in the U.S., 95 mass shootings have occurred since 1982, from which approximately 76 semi-automatic handguns and 85 assault weapons and weapons with high magazine capacity were recovered.

– In 2017 alone, 11 mass shootings in the US caused 117 fatalities and 587 injuries occuring in concert, religious, workplace, airport, and shopping venues and in community.

– States that restrict assault weapons also have the lowest per capita homicide rates.

– Researchers from Harvard School of Public Health demonstrated that from 1982 to 2011, mass shootings occurred every 200 days on average. Since late 2011, they found, mass shootings have occurred at triple that rate—every 64 days on average.

– Federal legislation passed in 1997 stated that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” The vague nature of this law, and its 2011 extension to the National Institutes of Health, has effectively prevented federal funding for firearms-related research.

– In 2013, following the Sandy Hook shooting, former President Barack Obama issued an executive order calling for the CDC to “conduct or sponsor research into the causes of gun violence and the ways to prevent it”. Despite this and without specific appropriations from U.S. Congress, new research proposals remain unfunded.

Gun Violence: Facts and Statistics | Violence Prevention Initiative

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On average, 17,499 children and teens are shot per year in murders, assaults, suicides and suicide attempts, unintentional shootings, or by police intervention; 2,677 of these children die.

– 1,671 children and teens are murdered.
– 827 children and teens kill themselves.
– 124 children and teens are killed unintentionally.
– 24 are killed [via] police [involvement.]
– 30 die but the intent was unknown.

…Exposure to gun violence leaves scars. Research has shown that exposure to gun violence can traumatize children and youth both physically and emotionally by causing:

– Psychological problems including intrusive thoughts, sleep disturbances, anger, withdrawal and aggression; in some cases, post-traumatic stress disorder
– Difficulty concentrating in the classroom, decline in academic performance, and lower educational and career goals
– Increased delinquency, substance abuse, and risky sexual behaviors
– Desensitization to violence
– “Protective behaviors,” such as joining a gang or arming themselves with guns or knives

How does exposure to gun violence affect kids and teens? – Philly

Oh for the love of Pete! Enough with the attempting to make spurious correlation between gun violence and exposure to violent media already….

Wouldn’t a more direct correlation to exposure to gun violence itself be more obvious?! Or perhaps take a look at socio-economic and cultural patterns surrounding high rates of gun violence?

Nope,  blame popular media. If this was a hundred years ago they would be blaming sordid literature. …And they still wouldn’t be anywhere closer to seeing the big picture. Such an obnoxiously lazy impulse on the part of pop-literati .

More than 11,000 Americans are killed in assaults involving guns annually, and at least 50,000 more are injured. Among people between the ages of 15 and 24, nine of every 100,000 lives end due to a gun homicide. About 65 of every 100,000 people in this age group are injured by gun assaults every year.

…Diseases that spread through social connections follow a different pattern from airborne colds or food-borne illnesses, in which contagion among strangers is more common. Papachristos postulated that subjecting gun violence to a traditional epidemiologic study would reveal whether it indeed behaves like a blood-borne pathogen.

…Having identified a network of gun violence, the researchers used a mathematical model to examine whether the spread adhered to known patterns of social contagion. …The model assumed that closeness mattered—“You’re more likely to influence a friend than a friend of a friend,” says Green—and that exposure risk, meaning a gun violence victim infecting someone else, diminished over time.

…The Chicago shootings included in the study occurred, on average, every 85 days, lending further support to the notion of gun violence as an infectious disease. Those 85 days suggest an incubation period, the time between a host becoming infected and a symptom appearing. Repeat gunshot events often occur within hours, says Gary Slutkin, infectious disease physician at the University of Illinois and adviser to the World Health Organization, who was among the first public health experts to see violence as a pathogen. But the short time frame in which people moved from being a friend of a new victim to a victim themselves—just a few months—was surprising.

How Gun Violence Literally Infects Communities

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Near the end of the wide-ranging interview, Burnett again referenced speculation about Nunberg’s mental state and said she noticed the smell of alcohol on his breath. Nunberg denied he had had anything to drink.

“My answer is no, I have not,” Nunberg said.

Nunberg denied being on anything else either.

“Besides my meds, antidepressants, is that OK?” Nunberg said.

Sam Nunberg: ‘I’m not going to get sent to prison’ – CNNPolitics

But his emails!

A majority of youth gun deaths are homicides. Suicides account for about one-third of all youth gun deaths, and unintentional shootings for about 7% of those deaths. Older teens, males, African American and Hispanic youth, and young people residing in urban areas are at particularly high risk for gun homicide; white adolescents, males, and youth living in rural areas are at highest risk for gun suicide.

…Children exposed to gun violence at home, at school, in the community, [*] …can experience negative psychological effects including post-traumatic stress, poor school performance, increased delinquency, risky sexual behaviors, substance abuse, and desensitization to violence. All of these effects can make children and youth more prone to violence themselves.

https://www.princeton.edu/futureofchildren/publications/docs/12_02_ExecSummary.pdf 

[no, well-intentioned liberals, there is no comparison between media exposure and actual exposure to gun violence. So, no, that bit isn’t going to be included in this excerpt]*

[PS – the recommendations are fairly good but the outlined strategies are empty b.s. ]

Did Bernie Sanders vote against background checks and waiting periods for gun purchases? | PolitiFact

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