Suicides and school shootings seem to trigger similar actions in others.

Yeah, it becomes easier to think the unthinkable when it’s been pre-thunk. We’ve had a spate of folks tossing themselves off before the rail tracks, and the usual pointless responses ("Make the trains run really, really slow!") and the Golden Gate is popular as ever ("Make the bridge really, really wide so they die of thirst first!"): you can’t stop an action with a reaction.