We as a nation have been teaching our children well and when the means, guns, are there they can kill.
We are teaching our children well. What children see modeled, violence, particularly what they see in the media: movies, TV and video games. Why these three? They are the most interactive with video game violence as the most immersive of the three.
One common characteristic in many of the mass shootings that we've seen all too frequently, is that the shooters were gamers.
In Paducah, Kentucky, fourteen-year-old Michael Carneal stole five guns from a neighbor's house and brought them to school in the trunk of his sister’s car. He then took one of the hand guns and fired eight shots at a student prayer group just as they were breaking up. Prior to stealing this weapon, he had never before shot an actual handgun. Of the eight shots he fired, Michael had eight hits on eight different kids. Five were head shots, the other three were upper torso. The results were three dead and one paralyzed for life. Fortunately, it was a small caliber gun or the death toll would have been higher. According to the FBI, the average experienced and qualified law enforcement officer in an average shoot-out at an average range of about seven yards hits with less than one bullet in five. How could Michael acquire such killing ability? Above all, what would allow him to commit such a horrific act?
Michael had never shot a real gun until the day before the shooting, he did however have a good deal of experience in a videogame.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the Columbine High School students who murdered 13 people and wounded 23 in Littleton, before killing themselves, enjoyed playing the bloody video game Doom. Harris created a customized version of Doom with two shooters, extra weapons, unlimited ammunition, and victims who could not fight back—features that are eerily similar to aspects of the actual shootings.
There are many consequences of video (including TV, movie and videogame)
violence. These include:
Aggression. Viewing televised and video game violence can lead to increases in aggressive behavior and/or changes in attitudes and values favoring the use of aggression to solve conflicts.
Desensitization. Extensive violence viewing may lead to decreased sensitivity to violence and a greater willingness to tolerate increasing levels of violence in society
Adam was from what little we know was probably ASD (autism spectrum disorder), and what else we do not yet know, Those that are ASD are by nature obsessive, and Videogames are so very very immersive and they teach that it is OK to kill.
We teach our children well