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As of mid-April, there have been at least 145 mass shootings in the United States in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group that tracks gun violence. (The group defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are killed or injured.) And mass shootings represent just a small fraction of shootings nationwide. How has this pervasive violence affected our mental states or changed the way we live?
The New York Times’s Well desk created an online form for readers to answer those questions in their own words. More than 600 people responded: Some had personal experiences with gun violence; others were dealing with the existential dread of what might occur. As one reader wrote, “At work, I wonder if my desk would provide enough space for me to hide.” The resulting article, which used some of the responses to illustrate how gun violence has changed life in America, was published online on March 26 — just one day before a 28-year-old assailant killed six people, including three children, at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville. And yesterday morning, at least four people were killed and nine others were injured in a shooting at a bank in downtown Louisville, Ky.
Christina Caron, a mental health reporter, corresponded with a select group of respondents, and a team of Times news designers — Deanna Donegan, Hang Do Thi Duc and Tiffanie Graham — built a presentation that reflected the emotions of those who shared their stories.
Ms. Caron discussed interviewing people about trauma, the broad consequences of gun violence and the emotional toll internalized by many Americans. This conversation has been edited and condensed.
How did the idea for this project come about, and what was the process of putting it together like?
The idea builds off a piece I wrote last year about the mental health ramifications of gun violence. There was an expert in that piece who had said something that has stayed with me, which was that when gun violence happens, it causes a ripple effect, much like if you throw a stone into the center of a pond. So even people who are not directly affected by gun violence may experience a lot of anxiety and worry surrounding the potential of it.
There are a couple of reasons people may feel so much stress about gun violence, even if they don’t have any direct experience with it. One is the uncertainty of it. When we watch the news and hear about an event like the shooting in Nashville, it feels random. Why was it at a school? Why was it that time of day? There isn’t always a satisfying answer. And that uncertainty can breed anxiety.
There’s also — and this was shared in a lot of our responses — a feeling of helplessness: Why isn’t more being done to change this? Why isn’t the country banding together to try to fix this? People feel as though there’s nothing they can do, and that can lead to feelings of numbness or resignation. That is a really tough thing to live with.
Were there considerations you made before you began these interviews?
One of the biggest considerations is to approach the subject with a lot of sensitivity, compassion and empathy, and to help put people at ease by explaining the process and how we will fact-check everything before anything is published online, that I will keep them in the loop the entire time. I like to stay in really close contact with all of my sources, but especially for a story like this, because it’s just so important to get the details right.
With a subject like this, someone might be opening up about some of their biggest fears or anxieties or about one of the worst days of their life. It’s incredibly important to help people feel as though they’re cared for throughout that whole process, and that I’m invested in helping them tell their story how they want to tell it.
Shortly after this was published online, there was a mass shooting at a school in Nashville. What was your first reaction upon reading the news?
There was a part of me that was thinking, it’s remarkable that this happened so shortly after we published. On the flip side, I really wasn’t that surprised, because we knew when we started working on this that it was just a matter of time before we would hear about another mass shooting. I went back to some of the respondents to see if there was anything they wanted to add or change. It’s sad to say, but I did also include new responses that we gathered after that shooting happened that were more reflective of what had just occurred in Nashville.
How much of an emotional toll does this type of reporting take?
It was difficult, especially because I’m the mother of two children. There are shootings that have happened really close to my oldest daughter’s elementary school. When I read about how people were making changes to their daily lives, it made me feel a little anxious. I wasn’t sure if I should make changes.
I think about the collective mental health of our country, because it’s an illustration of what experts and researchers had talked to me about the year before: Gun violence is an enormous public mental health problem. We really have to view it as a health concern.
