Gun Violence In Movies Essay

As they would instead speculate that anger is what drives individuals to kill and however depression can lead to anger. Mike McIntire, author of the article, “What Makes a Shooter Do It,” explains that many shooters are usually suffering from a psychological issue mixed in with the depression. Rebecca J. Rosen, “Violence is Contagious,” does an example of a study done to children in Israel determined their depression levels to rise up with all the real violence they viewed and somehow, they developed coping into the same violent acts. Now some may even say video games produce the same effect, but the person isn’t produced fear from playing the game compared to viewing in real life. Flanagan mentions that anything could create violent ideas if we sat down to think about it, even something as meaningless as toy

When it comes to the topic of violent media, some of us would readily agree it’s a controversial subject as to whether kids should or shouldn’t be exposed to it. This is because many children who view violent media react negatively rather than not being affected at all. Where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of what effects does it have on children. Whereas some are convinced that it is a healthy alternative for kids to express themselves, others maintain that it causes kids to become more aggressive and contributes to juvenile crimes.

The article, “The Truth About Video Games and Gun Violence” by Erik Kain discusses how video games and gun violence correlates. The author opens up with someone by the name of Aaron Alexis who resorted to gun violence while playing video games that contained violence. There is a violent video game that scares parents and behavioral experts. There has been a debate on whether people who play video games later have violent behavior. Throughout the years, video games continue to show images portraying violence.

Over the past two decades, hundreds of studies have examined how violent programming on TV affects children and young people. While a direct "cause and effect" link is difficult to establish, there is a growing consensus that some children may be vulnerable to violent images and messages.

According to Ken Corbett, an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the NYU and child psychologist states students will be afraid when violent force is upheld as safety. Ken explains, “I have a patient who recalls his silent car rides with his father who kept two guns under the driver’s seat. Silently the boy watched, on guard, even though nothing ever happened.” The presence of guns will silence the necessary talk of violence, childhood rivalries, and bullying.

Every year more than 20,000 children, as well as a youth under the age of 20 years, face deaths and in other case injured by firearms in the US. The fact that guns are lethal, as well as the fact that there is ease of access to the guns by the young people, is the main explanation why firearms are the second cause of deaths among young people between 10 and 19 years. Most of these deaths are homicides while suicides account for approximately one-third of the deaths by gun among the young people, and unintentional shootings account for approximately 7% of the deaths. Among the homicides that have perpetrated by the young people in their school include the 2012-gun attack at Sandy Elementary where 28 people at the school killed. In the year 1927 in the bath school, there were 45 murders whereby the majority of the victims were children. At Virginia Tech, a gunman killed 33 victims in the year 2007 (Swanson, et al. 361-376).

More specifically gun culture. If you take a close look at the movies, T.V. shows, and also video games that is certainly a part of American culture, many of them include acts of violence involving firearms. Which has many people debating if these violent video games and violent movies, are largely impacting these vehement acts. And according to some psychologists and certain studies on how the media affects cognitive behavior, this is partially true. Sagepub.com reports that, “Media violence produces short-term increases by priming existing aggressive scripts and cognitions, increasing physiological arousal, and triggering an automatic tendency to imitate observed behaviors. Media violence produces long-term effects via several types of learning processes leading to the acquisition of lasting (and automatically accessible) aggressive scripts, interpretational schemas, and aggression-supporting beliefs about social behavior, and by reducing individuals' normal negative emotional responses to violence (i.e., desensitization).” [http://psi.sagepub.com/content/4/3/81.abstract] Although, reducing the consumption of violent movies or videos games can significantly diminish aggressive behavior, specifically in younger individuals, it is still not certain if it can completely eradicate these homicidal acts. Albeit, violence in the media can affect cognitive behavior, it can’t be held exclusively accountable for the cause of mass

By conditioning the soldiers, they are able to kill other humans with relative ease. “Just as the army is conditioning people to kill, we are indiscriminately doing the same thing to our children, but without the safeguards” (Grossman 2). Grossman claims that media desensitizes the children to violence, and kids often associate it with pleasurable things, making violence not so bad to them. However, as Michael Zarozinski puts it, “Any image that you are exposed to repeatedly will desensitize you to it. Simply being desensitized to violence will not lead to violent behavior. It simply makes one think less of violence when it does occur and can lead to people overestimating their chances of involvement in violence” (1). Regardless, Grossman continues by saying that “When people are frightened or angry, they will do what they have been conditioned to do” (4). He claims that by kids playing games, learning to repeatedly point and shoot, these children are being subjected to operant conditioning and will shoot others when cornered. Grossman gives the example of a murder case in South Carolina. A couple of kids were robbing a convenience store, and the defendant shot the clerk reflexively without consciously deciding to. Grossman says this is due to the fact that the kid played too many video games, conditioning himself to shoot instinctively. The obvious flaw in this logic is that the kid must be in a situation where shooting someone is a viable option.

As the production of firearms has grown to become a multibillion dollar industry, the exposure the public has had to firearms has also increased accordingly. Because more and more individuals have chosen to own guns, the amount of innocents that have been killed has consequently climbed. In the United States, since 1.69 million kids age 18 and under are living in households

My topic arguable because NRA (National Rifle Association) in the U.S. do not want to hear what the children say about the use of guns. The National Rifle Association(NRA) should realize that psychological effects of gun violence it gives to the children is

As far back as 1994, Webster and Wilson found that “Because guns are ubiquitous in the United States and integral to the current epidemic of youth violence, pediatricians should participate in primary prevention of firearm injuries,” (Webster & Wilson, 1994, p. 617). The author also discusses the effects of media violence in the nature of television and video games as instilling violence into the development of children in their formative years. “These portrayals of gun use may suggest to children that guns confer power, respect, and a

    The American Psychological Association (APA) has recognized the demand of gun violence prevention. In February of 2013, the APA authorized a report led by experts to research and find conclusions and loopholes to help prevent gun violence. They began with the antecedents of gun violence; developmental issues and gender and culture. The research first went toward finding developmental risks, such as firearms being introduced to families. Also, studies were conducted where male expectations started; why are males supposed to be tough and independent. Their conclusions began with children. If we can help parents raise emotionally stable and happy children, we can have less anger, violence, anxiety and depression embedded in families. “The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development” supports this fact (Ginsburg, 2007). The ACT/Parents Raising Safe Kids program focuses on teaching parents strategies to prevent their children from growing up around any violence. This program also teaches parents the way to react when your child has any act of violence; how to point them away from violence and resolve issues with peace (ACT, “n.d”).

In Grand Theft Auto, you run a round picking up jobs in an imaginary city. These jobs range from killing union workers to stealing pricy automobiles. In Conker’s Bad Fur day, you play as a playful cartoon squirrel that drinks beer and urinates on the enemy to defeat him. In the Journal of the American Medical Association, 90% of the games played today actually reward the player to injure another person and these were the games rated Teen. These types of gratuitous violence portrayed in video games transfer over into the everyday lives of these children. Studies of children exposed to violence have shown that they can become: “immune” or numb to the horror of violence, imitate the violence they see, and show more aggressive behavior the more they’re exposed to violence. Some children accept violence as a way to handle problems. Studies have also shown that the more realistic and repeated the exposure to violence, the greater the impact on children. For instance, a child in Kentucky ended up bringing a revolver to school and shot 8 students. Police ended up pin-pointing the source to the video games the child had been playing. The child ended up raking in more than 10,000 hours of a shoot em’ up style game that rewarded bonus points for headshots.

Violent video games can desensitize children. Studies show that most video games in today’s society contain some type of

Craig Anderson and Karen Dill of Iowa State and Lenoir-Rhyne Colleges conducted a study in which they gave video games to students who were not predisposed towards aggressive behavior. Some students were given violent games, and others non-violent games to play. Those given violent games showed an increase in violent thoughts and behaviors, whereas those given non-violent games did not show a change (Walsh 3) C. Movies/Television 1. After the March 24, 1998 Jonesboro, Arkansas shooting, the head of the American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force of Juvenile Violence said that children do not kill one another; it is a learned skill (Grossman 4). 2.