-16 yr old Luke Woodham from Pearl, MS, shoots and kills his mother then goes to his high school and kills 3, wounds 7.

-Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, from Jonesboro, Ark., trip the fire alarm and kill 4 students and a teacher. 10 others are injured.

-15 yr old Kip Kinkle killed his parents then went on to hit 24 students in his school cafeteria with gunfire-- 2 die.

-18 yr old Eric Harris and 17 yr old Dylan Klebold left 12 students and a teacher dead along with 23 wounded before killing themselves. (McDowell 3-4)

As the CBS President Leslie Moonves stated after the Columbine shootings, “Anyone who thinks that the media has nothing to do with it is an idiot.” (JCal 1) Children are committing mass murder at ages where we don’t even have laws to punish them (JCal 5).

What is it that makes our kids shoot to kill in our society and with such accuracy? I believe violent video games play an important role in this recent phenomenon. After researching violence and video games, I quickly learned that violent video games ar

-With each new level you are tempted, giving you the “I’ll show you!” attitude.

Classical conditioning - an originally neutral stimulus becomes associated with a particular physiological or emotional response that the stimulus did not originally produce (Sternberg 166).

In the entertainment industry the role models are altogether different. The aggression taught by Hollywood’s new role models is unrestrained by any obedience to law. Also important is the media’s handling of the shootings. When the pictures of these kids appear on our TV screens, somewhere there will be another unstable kid who will see him, relate to him in some way, emulate him, and copy him. As a result of research into teenage “copycat” suicides, TV stations today generally don’t cover suicides (Trained 18). Unfortunately, the media hasn’t made the connection with our young mass murderers.

Some topics in this essay:
Silent Scope, Syndrome AIDS, Viet Nam, Marine Corps, According Grossman, Crisis II, Brigadier Army, Leslie Moonves, Ranger Psychology, Violence Strong, * *, * * *, video games, entertainment industry, role models, targets hitwith, 1 1, violence immune, immune system, violence strong, video game, violent video games, dark silhouette silent, total vice rating, silhouette silent scope,