Hatred and suspicion are rising up in the USA and spilling over into Canada. These fears are increased as news of mass violence from distant parts of the world comes into our living rooms.
What has that got to do with The Beacon? In a quiet little place like Brighton these problems shouldn't have much effect, but it does. Parents need to watch the trends changing around us, to help our youth be ready and make reasonable choices.
Last week I was given a book by my friend Henry Getkate and I gave it a read. Wow! There's some pretty disturbing stuff in there.
I'm posting a book review here and I will put it elsewhere (booksbyreneschmidt.blogspot.ca) just because I think it's a good thing to stay informed.
Assassination Generation by Lt Col Dave Grossman
When we read about mass shootings at Pulse
Nightclub, massacres at Aurora Colorado, Columbine High School, Sandy Hook
Elementary school, Virginia Tech University and a raft of other places; we have
to wonder if this is a new phenomenon in history. What causes some quiet loner to pick up an
automatic weapon and start shooting random people? Is our generation of
mankind the first to have so many people, in peacetime, to be slaughtered by
strangers?
Author Lt. Col. Grossman has made a
study of this.
Apart from the title, which I think sensationalizes the quality of this well-researched book, Assassination Generation is an important read for parents, teachers,
youth workers, lawyers and lawmakers.
Grossman
has a fascinating background. Serving many years as a career combat soldier in
the U.S. infantry and in the Airborne Division as a paratrooper and officer,
and later as a Professor of Psychology at West Point and Professor of Military
Science at Arkansas State University, Grossman brings unusual expertise to this
nasty topic. His psychological area of study
is on how people kill each other. That's right.
His
previous books have dealt with the difficulty of training professional soldiers
to actually shoot to kill an enemy. His
research indicates that people have a built in resistance to taking the life of
another human. Statistics for kill rates for soldiers in riflemen companies in
various wars shows that no matter how accurate a soldier may be at shooting at
a paper target they must still be trained at length to overcome this resistance before
they will shoot to kill another human being.
Assassination Generation makes a good case for showing that
shoot-to-kill video games are as effective in overcoming a person’s reluctance
to take a life as the best military training is. Our shoot-to-kill video-game players, in other words, learn to take lives of real humans just as soldiers do.
Assassination
Generation is a readable and well-researched statistical case for connecting
the rise of mass shootings in the world with the rise in popularity and
availability of highly graphic ‘first person’ killer video games. In these restricted or adult-rated games, the
player assumes the role of rogue cop, lone-wolf soldier, frustrated armed guard,
or just about anyone with varied weaponry and unlimited ammunition and uses
these to kill people. Sometimes the killed people are ‘bad guys’ and sometimes
they are innocent bystanders. Kills are rewarded with points or advancement to
a higher level in the game’s structure. These sick games show killing as graphically realistic and messy. Each shot is accompanied by details of
corpses, blood spatter, chunks of flesh flying, people begging for mercy and
all sorts of nasty stuff most of us will never see in a normal lifetime.
Grossman
does not argue for an absolute ban on these snuff games but makes the case that
ratings for these games are not well regulated or consistent. Games identified
as dangerous to young minds are still too easily purchased by youth. The harmful effects of these games on young
minds is more long-lasting than the effects on adults. He shows how the billion
dollar media industry lobbyists have caused confusion over the ratings
issue, leaving some of the most destructive video games too easily available to children.
Grossman
shows that increased used of media leads not only to violent behaviours but to
other aberrant behaviours in youth too. Interestingly, children and teenagers now
spend more time on video screens and interactive electronic media than any
other activity besides sleeping.
Grossman
makes some basic suggestions as to how parents can prevent harm form overuse
and addictions to video games.
The only jarring note is that Grossman does not line himself up with the 85% of Americans, who want more restrictions on automatic weapons. He does not point out the obvious connection between angry lunatics being able to own ever more sophisticated types of automatic weapons and the murderous head count of folks shot dead by them. His case is that even in countries with strict
gun controls, like Norway, automatic weapons and assault rifles can still be
obtained by someone like Anders Behring Breivik who killed 77
teenagers.
Perhaps.
But the mass killings in the USA, while its ‘good-ole-boy’ gun lobby continues to block any meaningful restrictive legislation, far outnumber the slaughter in other countries
with limited public access to guns.
But I digress. Assassination Generation is still an important book to read and consider.
No comments:
Post a Comment