Analysis: Culture of Violence, or Culture of Death?

[herbstin]

Analysis: Culture of Violence, or Culture of Death?
Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Wednesday, April 18, 2007


In the wake of the horrific massacre at Virginia Tech on Monday, the chattering class will be once again chorusing the question they pose whenever some tragedy that is seemingly beyond understanding takes place in America: Why?

Their answer is almost universally the same: We live in a culture of violence. Additional blame is usually laid upon the prevalence of guns, as if weapons are capable of acting on their own, without the aid of a human finger on the trigger.

Then there is the matter of the prevalence of violence to which youngsters are exposed.

According to a study by Parents TV, an affiliate of the Media Research Council, it is estimated that by the time the average child will have witnessed 8,000 murders and over 100,000 other acts of violence before leaving elementary school.

The killer in this case, Cho Seung-Hui, came to the Uniteds States from South Korea at the age of 8 in 1992.


Hollywood and our entertainment industry, include violent video games, reach children at an earlier and earlier age.

By the time that child is 18 years old, he or she will witness 200,000 acts of violence, including 40,000 murders.

One 17-year study concluded that teens who watched more than one hour of TV a day were almost four times as likely as other teens to commit aggressive acts in adulthood.

Television, PTV states, "can be profoundly influential in shaping an impressionable child or adolescent's values, attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors. [It] reaches children at a younger age and for more time than any other socializing influence, except family. The average child spends 25 hours a week watching television, more time than they spend in school or engaged in any other activity except sleep. Is it any wonder then that children so readily absorb the messages that are presented to them?

"PTV asks what the cumulative impact of 25 hours of television a week is upon the youngsters exposed to all that violence.



"The facts are undeniable — kids are exposed to an incredible number and variety of violent acts. That, however, does not explain why some — a small number — react to what they see by embracing extreme violence themselves."
Susan Villani, a Baltimore, Md., psychiatrist who has reviewed the past 10 years of study on media violence, was quoted by the Christian Science Monitor as saying: "Clearly, with more exposure [to media violence children] do become desensitized, they do copy what they see, and their values are shaped by it."

The key word there is "desensitized" – rendered immune from understanding that what they see is unacceptable behavior. When children are inoculated with a vaccine that protects them from a disease, they become immune to its effects.

Children exposed to an epidemic of violence also need to be inoculated by the spiritual vaccine we know as morality.

And until children are brought up by parents who fulfill their responsibility by teaching by word and example the need for behavior based on morals, those children will be desensitized to the violence they see all around them and tempted to imitate it.

This is what we see when we read of teenagers brutalizing homeless men until they require hospitalization. We see it in the videos that show children, both boys and girls, mercilessly ganging up and beating other defenseless children.

There is another matter to consider in the aftermath of Virginia Tech: The attempt to deprive people of the right to bear arms to protect themselves has seriously impeded our rights to self-protection.

A case in point: In January of this year the Virginia State Legislature killed a bill that would have allowed the possession of handguns on college campuses as they are allowed throughout the state.

According to the Roanoke Times on Jan. 31, 2007, "Most universities in Virginia require students and employees, other than police, to check their guns with police or campus security upon entering campus." The legislation was designed to prohibit public universities from making "rules or regulations limiting or abridging the ability of a student who possesses a valid concealed handgun permit ... from lawfully carrying a concealed handgun."

The defeat of the bill was hailed by none other than Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker, who told the Times: "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus."

He should note that if some of the students or professors present in the classrooms at Virginia Tech targeted by the gunman has been carrying a handgun and had used it, many if not most of the dead would be alive today.



© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.


Analysis: Culture of Violence, or Culture of Death?

[leobold1]

Which one of these is more dangerous to you?

[Woodmonkey]

The defeat of the bill was hailed by none other than Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker, who told the Times: "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus."

All that "feeling safe" was an illusion and was not reality for those dead and wounded students. If there had been someone among them who was armed, there is an excellent chance that the murderer would have been stopped before he shot all those people.