Time was when boys used to point toy guns and say
‘Bang!’Now, they aim real guns and shoot one another. Nearly
4,200 teenagerswere killed byfirearms in 1990.Onlymotor vehicle
accidents kill more teenagers than firearms and the firearms
figures are rising. The chance that a black male between the
ages of 15 and 19will be killed by a gun has almost tripled since
1985 and almost doubled for white males, according to the
National Centre for Health Statistics.
Who could disagree with Health and Human Services
Secretary, Donna Shalala, when she pronounced these statistics
‘frightening and intolerable?’ In the shameful light of this ‘waste
of young lives’ in Ms. Shalala’s words, an often-asked question
seems urgently due to be raised again: Would less violence on
television – the surrounding environment for most children and
young adults – make violence in actual life less normal, less
accepted, less horrifying?
It may be difficult to prove an exact correlation between
the viewer of fantasized violence and the criminal who acts out
violence after turning off the set. But if the premise of education
is granted – that good models can influence the young – then it
follows that bad models can have an equivalent harmful effect.
This is the reasonable hypothesis held by 80 percent of the
respondents to a recent Times Mirror poll who think that violent
entertainment is ‘harmful’ to society.
Witness enough mimed shootouts, see enough
‘corpses’ fall across the screen, and the taking of a human life
seems no big deal. Even if a simple causal relationship cannot be
established between watching violence and acting it out, is not
this numbed sensitivity reason enough for cutting back on the
overkill in films and TV?
The writer uses ‘numbed sensitivity’ to refer to
What will actually be proved ‘if the premise of education
is granted’?
Stress your limit with past questions and answers