Mass shooting support for gun control spikes briefly then decays until the next massacre

Evidence

Mass shootings come and go, but their impact on public attitudes regarding gun laws is much the same. Immediately after a gun massacre, there is a small increase in public support for tightening gun laws. However, such massacres rapidly fade from public consciousness and legislative concern until the next rampage arouses brief concern anew. This pattern of attitudinal change repeats itself regardless of whether the massacres occur in elementary schools, high schools, colleges, theaters, shopping centers, churches, military bases, or workplaces. No public place provides people with safety from semiautomatic guns and their spray of multiple rounds of bullets. Nor is any particular group safe from random killing sprees in the public places they frequent. Gun violence is a form of threat where a few incidents can change the quality of life in society at large because of the unpredictability of the threat and the gravity of its consequences (Bandura, 1986). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1239

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1239
• XREF: connects to: Mass shootings only briefly shift public support for gun laws.