Thursday, September 02, 1999
- David Filip
I'm sorry kids. Deeply,
completely, one hundred percent sorry. For those of you who are
currently experiencing the "Wonder Years" (i.e.: within the
youth market's targeted demographics) it's time to return to school.
In my old school days this meant a whole lot of boredom compounded by
disappointing discoveries. I distinctly remember thinking that
Frankenstien would make the tedium of book reports less annoying, only
to find out that the original story was little more than a
thinly-veiled attempt at turning the word "wretch" into a
household expression. That book used "wretch" roughly
one thousand times as often as the Smurfs said "smurf" in
any given episode. At least I could say it was dull.
But the children of today don't think
of such things, no. Dullness would be a blessing now. The
first thought some children have is "well, I've got to go back to
school. I guess some wacko will start shooting classmates
again." Unfortunately, I have little doubt that this will
happen again somewhere.
There's no point in rehashing the
specific details or what security measures should be taken, but there
are a few interesting things to consider about the shooters.
- They valued the killing of others
over their own lives.
- They were easily able to obtain
the weapons necessary for their massacres.
- People who react to these
incidences of youth violence point their fingers at the media.
The first point is a problem that is
spread across so many people it's impossible to track down.
Parents, teachers, friends and everyone else have a little piece of
the blame. Somewhere along the line, these murderers never
learned to respect themselves or others. Virtually all the
shooters who chose not to kill themselves will live a life behind bars
until their elderly years.
The second point is debated in other
forums every day, but the third point is definitely of interest to
video game players. There are many people who feel that the
violence in Hollywood movies, television and video games is destroying
our nation's "moral fiber." Even the news coverage is
blamed for hyping up stories and thus encouraging more of these
violent incidents.
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