Violence Begets Violence

Right now at this very moment you can turn your TV on and watch just about anything that you want to, this also means so can your children. Do you know how much violence is being broadcasted through the media just today? Do you understand how this is affecting your child? Do you know that from birth to age 25 their brain is growing, and there are these neurons, "mirror neurons" that teach us to imitate what we see? What if it was your child who went to school with a gun? What if it was your child who was shot by a class mate? I believe that we as a country should force the media to limit the amount of violence that is being viewed by the public. Not just for ourselves but also for our children.

As a member of the United States Military I was sent to Iraq in 2003. I know that seeing individuals being killed and shot has made a difference in my life. I remember the very first moment I saw someone being dragged back into a HMMWV with bullet wounds, I threw up. My team leader walked up to me and said, "don't worry it wont be so bad next time". I remember asking myself why it won't be so bad next time. And then I thought about it. It's just like ripping a band aid off. The more you do it the less it's going to hurt. But I don't think that comparing a band aid to someone's life is fair. So this leads me to the media? Why is it ok to show death day in and day out to our nation when it is clearly affecting us? I got my answer one day while working at a bomb sight. I was trying o keep 2000 Iraqis back from trampling the crime scene and to add to the mess there were about 500 reporters. I was frustrated to say the least. I screamed at them to stay back and wanted to know why they wanted to see death instead of all the progress that was being made. Someone in the crowed screamed "bad news sells better than good news" And I couldn't say anything. I was dumb founded that individuals could be so caught up in making money that the long term effects didn't matter to them.

Andrew Stephen with the New Statesman in an article about The Unmentionable causes of violence wrote that, never before have young Americans been so bombarded with images of violence, a trend that is alarming mental health specialists. Dr. mark Mills, a distinguished forensic psychiatrist who has written extensively on the subject for publications such as the American Journal of psychiatry, tells me: "The thing that has changed is that anybody wanting to see violence can now see it" Films of the execution of Saddam Hussein and the beheadings of hostages in Iraq, for example are still the images on You Tube ( which had 6,030 clips of Saddam's execution available last Monday) that are the most sought after by young Americans. Why is it ok in today's society to watch someone die? No matter whom they are? No matter what they have done? I was in Iraq and I still have not watched that clip. We hear about the freedom of speech so often that people don't even want to fight the subject. Why? That law was made how many years ago? And they didn't have access to media that we do today.

That leads me to parenting. The reason I believe getting the media involved is so crucial, because parents have lost control of there kids. If you were to ask a single mother of three children what she was exactly doing to protect her kids from violence. She would say that she was doing the best she could, but that doesn't mean it is enough. I am not saying what they are doing is right. They are doing the best they are able to do. But like I said that doesn't mean that is enough. Columbine was the first major incident. Before the massacre the teenagers were playing a video game called "Doom". I have looked at the basics of this game and basically you are a dishonored marine who is ordered to kill people. Did these parents know what there children were doing? Did these parents buy this game for them? Who will ever know, only that lives were lost. Cho Seung-hui from Virginia Tech reined terror on his class mates. Andrew Stephen from the New Statesman concluded that from his addiction to a ghastly, violent video game called Counter Strike in his teens, he had moved on: he knew exactly how to produce 28 Quick Time video clips and 43 photos of himself, aware that by sending them to NBC, his first and last moments of stardom would not only reach mainstream media but would also be flashed around the world in seconds via You Tube and the like, allowing him to leave his own brief but indelible mark on history.

Joanne H Steward and Franco Follina (2006) say that literature review has discussed evidence on the impact of exposure to violence on aggressive and inappropriate behavior. The review has provided mainly evidence that exposure to media violence affects a person's behavior negatively and has been noted to have a detrimental effect on pro-social behavior, both in the long and short term. So not only are