Definition
Vividness: The creation of powerful feelings or clear images in the mind.
What we see after cases of mass shootings or school shootings is a great deal of outrage and demands that we make changes that will dramatically impact law abiding citizens and have little or no impact on criminals and evil doers. We see lots of emotionally based arguments and outrage.
A couple of other examples of vividness include being killed by a shark, and falling through the ice, especially when it involves children. Based on the number of news stories, you would think that sharks are on a rampage against mankind and the the average person is incredibly stupid and is willing to walk out on the ice for no reason at all.
The vividness of these images jump into the minds of most people and they can visualize the 
incident, put themselves into it, or put their loved ones into that incident. It makes it more real and more a part of their lives. Their fears become real.
The major issue with vividness is that people tend to lose the ability to use reason to think about the incident, the likelihood of it happening to them or their loved ones, and that there are many more likely concerns that they should have.
Basically, people lose all sense of perspective. Look at the backlash that Neil deGrasse Tyson is currently facing people he tried to bring some perspective to the most recent mass shooting, both of which were horrible, but incredibly small as far as the percentage of deaths in the United States.
It is amazing how many deaths we have in our country that are several times larger that get ignored because they just don’t bring the same level of vividness. People just seem to forget how many people die, every single day from (in no particular order):
- Underage drinking
- Suicide
- Opioid addictions
- Accidental poisoning
- Pedestrians hit by automobiles
- Auto accidents, in general
- Medical mistakes
- Malnutrition
- Falling off of chairs and other objects
- Drowning
- Gang violence
- and the list goes on and on…
The Point?
The point is that many of these deaths are not as vivid, nor are they matching anyone’s national political agenda anywhere near the same level as the anti-gun agenda. The only two that come close to being politically enflamed are suicide and opioid abuse/addiction. However, they don’t get near the attention that a shooting does.