Smell the Insidious Violence

Guns are more available than they once were. (So is everything else, by the way.) But they are nothing new. My husband grew up in the Southwest where most families owned firearms. Maybe not the sophisticated high-powered types available today, but capable of considerable destruction, nevertheless. He was taught how to shoot, and how to take responsible care of guns. Never in his wildest dreams, however, would he or his friends think of taking a gun to school and killing fellow students.

So where does this modern madness come from? Certainly not from the home. And not from the school. No teacher, no parent sits down with a kid and encourages him to be violent. And gun shops are not on every corner. So how do kids even know about guns, or what they can do with them? In my childhood, they were not a constant cultural presence. But they are now. Firing range in Sarasota, FL

And the major culprit that put guns and other forms of "entertaining" mayhem front and center is the mass media. On electronic screens large and small, kids can become acquainted with all forms of violence. While I was visiting family over the holidays, my 7-year old grandson and his friend went off to the den to play a video game in which the object is to kill as many "figures" as possible just by moving a small control. "I'll get my revenge" he promised, after one of his figures was obliterated.

In the wake of the Newtown massacre, I've tuned in on many sobering television discussions about what we need to do as a nation to put a stop to the madness. During the commercial break in one of these serious debates, movie trailers were aired showing people being killed by guns, explosions, knifing, garroting, bludgeoning, infernos and blood-curdling accidents, etc. All of this gratuitous violence is becoming ingrained in our culture, and our children seem to be getting inured as to the serious consequences. The media is constantly exposing them to the possibilities of what havoc guns and other weapons can wreak. It is the electronic teacher before whom we sit our children when they are not in school and we are not around.

So let's tighten the gun laws, if it makes us feel better and safer. Let's vent at gun sellers and gun owners, and hold them to a higher standard. But in the process, let's not ignore the fact that in places with the strictest gun control laws, the rate of gun violence has escalated. Chicago is a prime example. Well, it will be argued, the criminals just go over state lines to buy their weapons elsewhere, or get them illegally. Exactly. It's an armaments speakeasy, so to speak.

In Mexico, gun ownership is illegal. Any ordinary citizen possessing a gun or coming into the country with one is thrown into jail, no explanations allowed. Yet 30,000 Mexicans have been killed, mostly by gunfire, over the last six years of the ugly drug wars south of the border. How did they get their weapons in a country where they are legally banned?

Americans should wake up and smell the insidious violence around them. We must hold Hollywood's gratuitous mayhem as much responsible for the problem as we do the local gun dealer. We need to understand that when we expose children to a diet of violence in a what we think of as a "world of fantasy," the fine line is not always apparent to them, and much of the violence they witness seeps into their own everyday lives in a very real and dangerous way.

This is a opinion piece that will, I hope, encourage feedback. It is a far more controversial — and less safe — topic than, say, the vagaries of advancing age. Yet old or young, we face a terrible problem in America. We are staring down the barrel of a gun. But, in the end, is the gun to blame?

Photograph from Wikipedia: Indoor Shooting Range at Sarasota, Florida, USA. Taken by Kenn. Shooting a Glock 23 (.40 S+W); 2005

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Smell the Insidious Violence

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