Las Vegas: Despite false alarm, threat of shooter ‘changes your perspective of the place’

Friday, July 22, 2022 6:54 PM
  • Ricardo Torres-Cortez, Las Vegas Review-Journal

On a flight to Las Vegas earlier this month, a Florida family discussed how they planned to react in the unlikely event they found themselves having to flee from an active shooter in a crowded place.

Ronald Balogh and his parents planned to scatter, hide and meet up when it was safe.

“We had thought about it,” he said, adding that the July 4 shooting on a parade route in Illinois a few days prior was fresh in their minds.

These days, those thoughts may not be uncommon in America.

UNLV psychology professor Stephen Benning pointed to the “priming effect,” in which coverage in news media of massacres and ensuing discourse leave people thinking that the same thing could happen to them.