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School Shooting Prompts Legislation To Study Violent Video Games
New submitter seepho writes "Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has introduced a bill directing the National Academy of Sciences to lead an investigation to determine what impact violent video games have on children. Senator Rockefeller commented, 'Recent court decisions demonstrate that some people still do not get it. They believe that violent video games are no more dangerous to young minds than classic literature or Saturday morning cartoons. Parents, pediatricians, and psychologists know better. These court decisions show we need to do more and explore ways Congress can lay additional groundwork on this issue. This report will be a critical resource in this process.'"
This legislation was prompted by reports that Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza was a gamer. A draft of the bill is available online.
When you have an anti-religious, secular bureaucracy and secular judiciary seeking to drive God out of public life, something fills the vacuum. And that something, you know, I don’t know that going from communion to playing war games in which you practice killing people is necessarily an improvement.
Huckabee:
We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we’ve systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage because we’ve made it a place where we don’t want to talk about eternity, life, what responsibility means, accountability?
My work here is dung.
And watches the same movies, and listens to the same music. Yet we're the only ones with a mass murder fetish, and the shittiest mental healthcare. Media isn't the problem.
...right along with gun owners, we are at the twilight of those two industries unless we put this to a stop. Logical people know video games and guns don't cause violence - crazy assholes do. But as long as we're willing to be vilified, we will be picked to pieces in the chaos.
Endless war, militarized police, drone strikes, torture, gangster lifestyles, and overall general violence, it is all a contributing factor to devaluing life.
But let's ignore the real problem: mental illness. Lets blame guns and video games.
Adam Lanza's mother received nearly $25,000 a month in alimony, maybe the should study the connection between receiving ludicrous amounts of money for no reason and violence in children as well.
The shooter played Star Craft. Not a FPS, not some blood and gore style of game, but a strategy game. Its about as violent as chess (ok, it has a bit more blood then most chess games).
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
There have been reports that Adam Lanza obsessively played Call of Duty and Starcraft before he went on a shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., last Friday.
Starcraft? Seriously? That breeds killers?
...of why these mass murders are not being caught by the mental health system? Before we jump to conclusions and condemn the tools used by these insane criminals, we need to find out WHY someone would want to commit mass murder and WHY the mental health system is not catching these people long before they commit these acts of murder.
"They believe that violent video games are no more dangerous to young minds than classic literature or Saturday morning cartoons."
Classic literature and Saturday morning cartoons are, in many cases, bloody as hell. And people have gotten plenty hysterical about them in the past.
This looks more like a case of "shit happened, we need to blame somebody" than actually trying to solve anything. If a violent video game is going to turn someone violent it's more likely as a result of a preexisting condition.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
is how nobody understands that in roman times, medieval times, heck, even just 100 years ago, mankind was peaceful and loving
ever since these video games came out, murder has gone through the roof /sarcasm, for the sarcasm impaired
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Good, so we can finally put that myth to rest. Or by "study" do they mean "find some evidence that shows a correlation between them no matter how faulty the logic may be"? I'm guessing it's supposed to be the latter. After all, you can't earn many political points by commissioning a study that doesn't allow you to create a scapegoat or enact some laws to crack down on the "problem", and the fact he is proposing this now means it is, most definitely, a political move to create the appearance of action (never mind most of the time what should be done is nothing, because bad shit happens sometimes).
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
If there is an actual link between real world violence and violent video games (and I am skeptical of that) then maybe the violent video games merely reflect the world we live in. Saying violent video games cause real violence might be like saying that Brain Injury causes Football. (American type football.) After all, a link has been established between football and brain injury.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Really? Julius Caesar played violent video games? Ghenghis Khan? Al Capone?
Legislation passes, researchers arm themselves to the teeth, accidentally snuff themselves during oral hygiene operations.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
has anything better to do. Who cares about the fiscal cliff?
Preventing events like this is equivalent to trying to stop lightning strikes. In fact death by lightning is more common.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Yes, the rest of the world plays the same violent video games, same movies, same music. And yes, the rest of the world may actually take care of their mentally ill. But there is one big difference between us and the rest of the world.
We have the mostest, biggest, baddest guns.
(Baddestest?)
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
...by funding a study that determined how the Rockefellers have conspired against humanity for their own greedy and nefarious purposes.
Guns and shooting ranges are not violent in and of themselves. Target shooting is a mental exercise, a bit like meditation, it requires quite a bit of focus and mental control to be good at shooting. You've got to simultaneously be both very observant of the world around you (which way is the wind blowing, how fast is it blowing, etc.) and at the same time block it all out. You can't just go in and empty your clip in 2 seconds and expect to hit anything. If you've never been shooting, you should and you'll see that it is anything but violent. It is a form of mental exercise.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Why aren't we looking at keeping the crazy people themselves off the streets? As someone who has known someone that was mentally unstable and worked with their doctors to have them committed it's next to impossible to have an unstable person committed involuntarily. Typically the best you can do is 3 days, and beyond that nothing can be done unless they are an /immediate/ risk to themselves or others.
The standard needs to be changed to indeterminable risk to themselves or others, as this would make all the difference in the world in keeping unstable people off the streets and the rest of society safe. The standards are simply too stringent and by closing the institutions we have gotten rid of all of the economies of scale that allowed unstable people to have access to the physical and mental health care that they need. The result now is that the mentally unfit are homeless and society isn't protected from the unstable. The idea that this is somehow more 'humane' is ludicrous.
Children in Britain play exactly the same video games that American children play and they don't run around shooting each other all the time. America has a culture of gun violence and until that changes these terrible events will keep happening.
Let's try to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of crazy people, hmmm?
Even the NRA shouldn't have a problem with people properly securing their firearms.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
As a gamer, I would welcome any real study that examines the link between video game violence and real world violence. That said, a study that has as its aim the goal of finding such a link is worthless. And I suspect, based on Rockefeller's quote, "They believe that violent video games are no more dangerous to young minds than classic literature or Saturday morning cartoons. Parents, pediatricians, and psychologists know better," tells me that the answer has already been decided, and that any study undertaken at Rockefeller's behest will not accept "there is no link" as a possible outcome.
Yes, the religious right does that -- and the extreme left does it too. You don't have to look at only one extreme to see all the hate being generated. Your post is an example of yet another one-sided hate spewing viewpoint.
... or both.
Our recent politics on all sides have generated the idea that anyone who disagrees with the One True Viewpoint is either Evil or Stupid
A pox on all your houses.
The way to combat such stupid, ignorant hate is to stop doing it!
But there is one big difference between us and the rest of the world. We have the mostest, biggest, baddest guns. (Baddestest?)
Switzerland issues fully automatic assault rifles (real assault rifles, not just "scary looking semi-autos") to every mentally competent male of military-eligible age. The type of weapons that are incredibly difficult to acquire in the US (for those of us not obscenely wealthy, anyway)
By your reasoning, Switzerland should be a madhouse of old-west style gunfights; I'll leave it to you to discover whether or not that is the case.
But there is one big difference between us and the rest of the world.
Indeed, and you already pointed it out:
the rest of the world may actually take care of their mentally ill.
There's the real issue at hand.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
FTA:
"'Recent court decisions demonstrate that some people still do not get it. They believe that violent video games are no more dangerous to young minds than classic literature or Saturday morning cartoons. Parents, pediatricians, and psychologists know better."
If all the parents, pediatricians, and psychologists already *know* that violent video games are causing violence in children, why bother wasting money on a study to show what we already know?". I am not sure the Senator or most politicians in general realize what the point of a scientific study is. You do it when you *don't* know they answer and want to find out, not when you have already decided what the answer is and fabricate a study to support your prior conclusion. You have to use like real science and real statistics and stuff to ensure your study is as objective and free from bias as possible so that the answers are somewhat close to being true rather than merely supporting your position.
What is shocking to me is not that people would try to use BS science for political reasons. It is that they are not even trying to make it look like real science. The only reason I can think of why they don't is that they don't even know what real science looks like, so they can't even fake it.
It's like we have a bunch of people running the country that are at the intellectual level of mediocre high school students practicing to be adults through mock trials and model united nations.
America's first and deadliest school massacre - in 1927 - no games or guns involved. Games don't make people crazy, and if guns are "controlled", mass destruction can still be utilized, and it will make it harder for law abiding citizens to stop them.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster
Saying this man killed his mother and then a bunch of children and teachers because he played video games is about and logical as saying he did it because he ate fatty foods, so we need shut down all McDonald's. There is no link whatsoever, beyond the fact that somebody wants to milk the events and the heightened emotions it is generating for their own crusades. Tighter gun control would not have stopped a determined and unstable man from stealing guns to go killing. Even if there had been no guns, Im sure he could have found another way. Hell, this was the 2nd deadliest elementary school killing because the deadliest used a bomb.
This really is getting ridiculous. I am getting really tired of all the politicians and lobby groups trying to spin this tragedy to their own agenda.
Common Sense isn't as Common as people think...
As a philosopher, I would assert that some pieces of classic literature can be very dangerous: children may learn how to think.
The cause wasn't that the shooter played video games, the cause wasn't that the shooter had shot a gun before. The cause was that this guy seriously had some mental issues. You can't fix humanity.
Look at China, they've got some of the strictest gun control laws in the world. They've got censorship of nearly everything and yet this happens: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2248054/China-stabbing-22-children-elderly-woman-stabbed-outside-primary-school-Chinese-knifeman.html
You've got to strike at the root cause which is the mental issues. Not guns, not knives, not baseball bats, not video games, not comic books, etc.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
This is yet another case of certain people using a given tragedy to push their agenda.
The folks who already have an anti-gaming viewpoint are always going to use a given media event like this to push for bans on / studies on video games.
Last time I checked, it wasn't a troubled teenager taking out their peers, it was a legal adult slaughtering defenseless children. You can study the effects of violent video games on children all you want, but it's not going to address a situation like this. Maybe someone might have legitimately wondered about the connection between the Columbine shooters and video games, but I believe the studies that came out then pretty much said that "batshite f-tards will be batshite f-tards with or without video games" (I may be paraphrasing a little)
Ok, so I don't know either, but just really??? sick bastard ADULT shoots children and someone's proposing studies of video games effects on kids? Yeah, yeah, this guy was a kid once, but honestly - it's pretty obvious that this is yet another "We gotta do SUMTHIN'" knee-jerk response that politicians feel the need to whip out so they can seem like they're taking action... without actually threatening the interests of their donors.
For the record, it's my opinion that anti-gun folks are pretty much doing the same thing - they're going to take every opportunity to push gun laws regardless of the actual situation - they do it because it's how you move an agenda forward - throw it up against the wall enough and something will stick sooner or later.
The Digital Sorceress
Yeah, you are right! Those people with sub-one-million slashdot UIDs really are whores. Something should be done I tell you!
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I suggest getting people to watch this video. That, among other things, is brought up.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
While at one time they used to issue 50 rounds of ammunition along with it they no longer do. And 90%+ of the ammo that was issued has been returned when requested. You can't buy more, and purchasing another firearm of that type is impossible, and handguns are very difficult. Hunting rifles and shotguns are about it. So a society that has been shown to be responsible is given a gun, and one that is showing it isn't should not be. Trust is not only something you have to earn, but you have to be able to keep. Our forefathers earned it, the current batch not so much.
If you want to have a reasoned debate you cannot selectively use facts.
Wikipedia tells me that for the past five years, Switzerland has only permitted 2,000 of those with military issue weapons to store ammunition at home. Prior to that the ammunition was strictly audited. It's hard to kill using a gun with no bullets. Prior to 2007, the auditing requirement would make use of the weapon rare.
You also neglect to mention that the weapons are issued to civilians who have undergone military training. This is not like turning up at Walmart and buying a semi-automatic.
Comparing gun use in Switzerland to that in the US is like comparing chalk and cheese. Unless you're suggesting as a solution to gun crime that everyone of age should be conscripted to receive military training and the government should be allowed in private homes to audit your weapons?
When bringing up Switzerland in a discussion about gun control, you're being dishonest unless you also point out a few things:
1) For someone to have a gun, they need to serve three months in the military where they'll be evaluated and trained
2) The population of Switzerland is smaller than that of New York City. Sample size matters.
3) The poverty in Switzerland is half that of the United States.
And finally, Switzerland's voters are increasingly in favor of tighter regulations and ending the military-gun-at-home policy.
I'm also a bit unclear about some of the ammunition laws in Switzerland. While guns are easy to come by, it seems the ammo is more controlled than it is in the United States. And, the free ammo that the militia get only contains 50 rounds, sealed and numbered.
-David
I'm not American, but I've worked there for a while. And back home I keep up with the news about the US.
I fail to see that hate-spreading-left you talk about. All I see is crazy people from the Republican Party spreading hate and intolerance, promoting ignorance, forcing their warped puritan religious views on others, but promoting extreme selfishness, against the very basis of the religion they claim to love so much.
Most of those people would be considered mentally ill where I live.
Whatever happened to crazy?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
You can't really commit mass murder with your bare hands. While it's possible to kill someone with your fists, it's very very hard. Guns also desensitize their users, it's very different to pull the trigger and to beat a guy slowly to death.
One recent example: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/12/data-helps-rebut-the-violent-video-games-cause-shootings-argument/
Switzerland issues fully automatic assault rifles (real assault rifles, not just "scary looking semi-autos") to every mentally competent male of military-eligible age.
What I really find weird as a European is that gun loving Americans always tend to point to Switzerland. I think there is a lot of misinterpretation regarding swiss gun politics as it totally different of the situation in the states.
* There is mandatory yearly training for people that are a member of that militia.
* As of 2007 they don't issue personal ammo. Only special rapid deployment & military police has ammo stored at home.
* When a person service is ended and he wants to keep the weapon it is first sent to the factory to remove the automatic feature. * The sales of automatic weapons and silencers is forbidden.
* To carry a gun you need to have a "Waffentragschein" permit which in most cases is only given to private persons working in security
* To buy a weapon as a private citizen is regarding permits and background checks not that much different as in most European countries. Switzerland is also a Schengen country.
The swiss gun politics in no way is that similar as in the States.
Indeed, the amount of gun violence in the US is disproportionately higher than any other country on earth.
[citation needed]
I have no citation that the statement is correct, but here is citation that it is wrong:
List of countries by firearms related death rate.
If you sort on gun-homicides, you will see that the USA is 14th. Most of the "winners" are in Latin America.
How about they do an actual worthwhile study to show:
A. What effects religious brainwashing have on people (ie. members of the WBC); and
B. How the underlying psychological effects of these mental cases (murderers, religious loons) can and do alter a person's behavior and sense of reality without ever being exposed to video games--just shitty parents, maybe combined with some kind of "hidden" mental problem.
Of course calm doesn't mean stable but the idea that taking your kid out target shooting instantly trains them on how to be a mass murderer is absolutely ridiculous.
.22LR cartage. Such a thing would be banned under the terms of the '94 ban. However, http://cdn2.armslist.com/sites/armslist/uploads/posts/2012/07/13/470085_01_browning_30_06_bar_640.jpg would not be banned, despite the fact that a 30-06 has a whole lot more energy behind it and could do a whole lot more damage: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Z_e7UMpSDh0/S-x2DjLi22I/AAAAAAAAE6U/LbntDs3L6UU/s1600/comparisonlabel.JPG
And "assault rifle" is an absolute bullshit description which basically amounts to "this gun looks dangerous" there's nothing in the 1994 Assault Weapons ban that really bans anything functional in the guns. Basically its the gun equivalent to trying to reduce speeding by banning people from owning cars that are red, orange, yellow or have flames painted on.
For example this gun: http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/uzi_pistol_2245800_rs-tfb.jpeg
Looks dangerous, but really its just a semi-automatic pistol firing a
If anything, hunting rifles are -more- dangerous than so-called "assault weapons" because they've got more power behind the rounds. They are also far more accurate.
It amazes me how much of a knee-jerk reaction people have when it comes to guns. Especially from people who have never really shot one. Real guns are quite different than those that Hollywood portrays. Shooting is completely different than that which Hollywood (and video games) portrays.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Lets see, classics: Romeo and Juliet: Massive family feud between two wealthy "merchant" families, resulting in street battles and pub brawls with deaths. Ending with two main characters committing suicide. King Lear: King splits up kingdom to his daughters based on who loves him the most. Two of the three daughters conspire together and lie to get the largest shares. King disowns daughter who didn't lie. Once having the kingdom, the 2 daughters proceed to treat their father like crap, and plot to kill him. The good daughter goes to war with the other two. Good daughter is executed. King finds out his good daughter was executed, dies from grief. King's good servant commit suicide to continue serving the King in the afterlife.... Hamlet: Brother of King, kills the King, and then marries his now dead brother's wife. The son of the original king confronts his mother and can't believe that she would marry her former husband's killer. Girlfriend/lover of the son/prince commits suicide because the prince declairs that marriage should be outlawed in rage of what his mother has done. Oedipus Rex: Son/prince kills father/king. Marries mother who he is in love with.... No, there was no violence in classic literature, as long as you don't consider child molestation, incest, rape, murder, and suicide violent....
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Adam Lanza brushed his teeth. Clearly, toothpaste causes school shootings.
For great justice.
What the hell is a "military grade" weapon and how would banning those stop shootings?
.223 Remington, a caliber too small in most states to legally shoot a deer. Meaning that the majority of hunting guns have much more energy than your so-called "military grade" weapon.
.30-06 is absolute bullshit. The idea that these "military style" weapons are somehow more dangerous demonstrates a lack of knowledge or a willful ignorance to the facts.
Banning "assault weapons" to help reduce crime is like banning red cars to reduce speeding.
The gun used in the Sandy Hook Shooting was a
These guns aren't fully automatic, they are semi-automatic, the same types that many hunters use. You pull the trigger once and it fires once. You can't hold down the trigger and spray bullets everywhere, to get those you have go to through a LOT of paperwork and they are quite expensive and because of that very, very, very few civilians own fully-automatic firearms.
These guns have detachable magazines, much like any hunting rifle, either bolt-action or semi-automatic. The magazine capacity doesn't matter all that much when we are dealing with unarmed people in a school, the 5 seconds it takes to change in a magazine doesn't make a difference in a massacre like that.
The only other things that separate an "assault weapon" from an ordinary hunting weapon is the use of bayonet mounts and some other stylistic differences, none of which make a difference when it comes to the Sandy Hook Shooting.
The idea that the gun used in the Sandy Hook Shooting is somehow more dangerous than your grandpa's
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I think that is your first line of defense, and your first line of inquiry, to start with. How about Mom and Dad stop chasing what the Joneses down the street have? How about Mom and Dad stop worrying about working all the time so they can have a $650,000 McMansion like Sue and Bill do? How about Mom and Dad teaching their kid(s) to be happy with what they have and not lusting for what Bill junior has? How about Mom and Dad get over the stigma of having a conversation with their children and, you know, FUCKING TALK TO THEM - NOT _AT_ THEM? And for the love of whatever you hold dear, do not do this once they are 12. Start the conversations at age 2 - they won't understand it all then, but the topics are there and they will absorb that information. That concern. Those values. Instill in your children respect for adults, respect for others, and respect for themselves. Teach them right from wrong and how to tell fantasy from reality. Do NOT try and teach this to them when they are too old to give a shit what Mom and Dad think or believe - teach it to them from the beginning.
Tell the government to get the hell out of deciding how we discipline our children. Until and unless one is drawing blood and/or leaving bruises in places they should not conceivably be such as around the shoulders, ankles, chest, head, upper arms and so forth - basically, if it is within a few inches of the ass of that child AND this is not a persistent pattern, then fuck off and let them discipline their children. I'm not saying every child needs a spanking, but I know that my generation (late 30 year old and into 40 year old group) grew up respecting adults, authority, and without the vast sense of entitlement pervading our society today AND most - I would say 90% - of my friends and acquaintances had their ass spanked when needed. Or we were grounded and sent to a room NOT filled with every electronic marvel of the age so it was an actual punishment. We were not bribed to be quiet with a toy. We were told to be quiet or you'd get a real reason to cry... and we believed them.
I could go on but I think most people get my point. How about we start with getting Mom and Dad to be Mom and Dad and not "that authority figure I can ignore because they are never home and always working"? How about we start taking personal responsibility for ourselves and our children and stop blaming the TV, video games, and everything else BUT ourselves?
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
If you want to have a reasoned debate you cannot selectively use facts.
Agreed, and that's a two way street:
Wikipedia tells me that for the past five years, Switzerland has only permitted 2,000 of those with military issue weapons to store ammunition at home.
From the article:
Re: selective use of facts - the article refers to government issued ammunition. Waffentragschein (gun permit) holders can still purchase (and, therefore, possess) non-government issue ammunition.
Pot, meet kettle.
You also neglect to mention that the weapons are issued to civilians who have undergone military training. This is not like turning up at Walmart and buying a semi-automatic.
I neglected to mention a lot of things, as they were non sequitur to the point I was making, and I'm not in the habit of needless pontification.
Regarding this point of yours, I personally believe proper training should be mandatory prior to allowing an individual to purchase any firearm.
Unless you're suggesting as a solution to gun crime that everyone of age should be conscripted to receive military training and the government should be allowed in private homes to audit your weapons?
I suggested no such thing - I will, however, recommend for future reference that you fully read and understand the premise of a post before you respond to it, thus assuring that your statements are at least relevant to the topic at hand.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
There are billions of gamers in the world who are apparently able to separate digital fantasy from reality or we'd all have perished under the wrath of their sheer numbers a long time ago. The world would now look like something crossed between Mad Max and World of Warcraft if the argument for "violent video games" held any salt.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
While the OP had it wrong, it's not by much. Only a few countries have a higher amount of gun violence per capita.
So, citation provided.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
Media, as in news media is the problem. Every time a fucked up nutcase goes out on a killing spree, there is non stop media coverage. News media glorifies the murderers yet no one remembers one of the victims. So the next nutcase sitting at home watching this is probably thinking: Man, I could do the same thing and the world will remember me!
You'll also see the gun-homicide rate in the US is about four times that in Canada, which is still quite striking even after the hyperbole has been cleared away.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
There have been guns in this country since its founding. These rampages seem to be something that started happening in the last few decades. What is the cause of them? That's the hard question!
Since the shooting, I've heard calls to weaken the First Amendment (to silence the Westboro assholes), the Second Amendment (take ALL the guns), and the Fifth Amendment (pre-emptively locking up people who are deemed "weird.") Why not just throw the entire document in the shredder at this point?
My mother always told me to never make a decision when I'm upset. I wish the people of this country would take that advice.
Waffentragschein (gun permit) holders can still purchase (and, therefore, possess) non-government issue ammunition.
Is that actually true? My understanding was that ammunition for the service rifles (whether military full auto, or converted to civilian semi-auto) is only available for sale at the ranges, and must be used there after purchase.
I thought Roger Ebert's comments after Columbine were interesting:
"Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. "Wouldn't you say," she asked, "that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?" No, I said, I wouldn't say that. "But what about 'Basketball Diaries'?" she asked. "Doesn't that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?" The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it's unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.
The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. "Events like this," I said, "if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn't have messed with me. I'll go out in a blaze of glory."
In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of "explaining" them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy."
I keep hearing THIS solution over and over... I ain't buying it. I think this has caught fire with the folks who wish to blame anyone and anything except the free access to firearms. There are some assholes you cannot fix. There are some idiots you cannot fix. There are some folks one lab accident away from being a super-villain. And there are some folks who are going to miss a hug one day and implement their own personal doomsday plan. Reckon some readily available health care would've fixed Charles Manson?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
You're forgetting the bible. There is a lot of nasty stuff in the bible.
~X~