With the recent spate of children killing children, it is time for us to make some hard and unpopular choices necessary to stem violence on our schools. Our only recourse is a total ban on the items responsible for this carnage.
The glorification of gun violence prevalent in American society and fueled by television programming, movies, popular music and video games is a major causative factor inciting these children. Therefore, we should immediately move to implement a comprehensive ban... on televisions, movies, VCRs, and video games.
Now, I know the TV-loons will protest and will selfishly want to hold on to their TVs. "TVs have legitimate purposes", they will argue, "they are a useful tool for the dissemination of information and can be used for educational purposes." But these arguments do not stand up to the facts. Studies have shown that a television in the home is forty-three times more likely to be used to display an act of violence than to be used to view an educational or informational program. (I can't provide a verifiable citation, but I heard something like that so it's probably true).
Television owners are irresponsible and often do not secure the TVs in their homes. Their children can (and often do!) access them at will. The deadly results of this are evident from the recent tragedies in Jonesboro and Oregon. "Well, if don't want your children to watch TV", say the TV-loons, "then don't buy/own one." But the ignorance of this statement is obvious. What is to prevent my child from going to a friends house where they may encounter an unsecured TV or VCR. Also, unsecured TVs are often stolen and end up in criminal hands.
Now others will decry this ban as unconstitutional, holding to a flawed interpretation of their First Amendment rights. However, the First Amendment is not absolute and judicial review of pertinent legislation has supported reasonable restrictions on the First Amendment. Obviously the Founding Fathers did not mean for the citizenry to have unrestricted access to any type of mass media. Televisions, movies, VCRs and video games did not even *exist* when the Framers adopted the First Amendment. And there is nothing that TV or movies can express that cannot be fundamentally expressed by newspapers and books-- the media the Framers obviously intended the First Amendment to cover. TV-loons will argue, "but newspapers and books can also portray violent imagery, so why are they any less dangerous than TV?" Well the answer is obvious to all but the TV-loons... a books or newspaper can only be read by one person at a time, while a violent TV or movie image can be beamed to hundreds, thousands,... or even millions of children at the same time. The TV-loons will say, "TV and movies don't kill people. People kill people." But responsible individuals know this is a sham argument. If not for the violent images in TV and movies, it would not occur to our children to commit such violent acts.
As members of a civilized society, it is time we act accordingly. Our legislators are paralyzed by the powerful motion picture industry and their cronies at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)- the lobbying arm for these death merchants. These irresponsible movie studios continue to release pictures replete with violent imagery. Yes, we have laws on the books to prevent children from exposure (R and NC17 ratings), but these just aren't enough! Children continue to get tickets to these films (some irresponsible parents even take their children to these films!). The evil video rental industry even makes videotapes of these movies available to children!
Parents just can't do it all. They can't supervise their children 24 hours a day. And with violent images on video-tape, accessible to children at any time, its just too much. We need to ban VCRs. After all, who needs a VCR. No one really *needs* one. They may have some limited usefulness, but they also have a potential for misuse.
It is time for us to act and ban all these instruments
of violence. And anyone who disagrees is a loon or bad person.
After all, its for the children!