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By Lt. Col. Dave Grossman
Phi Kappa Phi National Forum, Fall 2000, 2500 words
Authors
note: This was published in Phi Kappa Phi “National Forum,”
in their Fall 2000 issue. "National Forum is one of the
most prestigious, interdisciplinary, academic journals.
An earlier version was published in “Christianity Today,”
“Saturday Evening Post,” “US Catholic,” “Hinduism Today,”
and many other US publications, and it was translated and
published in periodicals in nine different languages. I
am the copyright holder, and I authorize reproduction and
distribution of this article by the readers of this web
page.
A
Case Study: Paducah, Kentucky
Michael Carneal, the 14-year-old killer in the Paducah,
Kentucky school shootings, had never fired a real pistol
in his life. He stole a .22 pistol, fired a few practice
shots, and took it to school. He fired eight shots at a
high school prayer group, hitting eight kids, five of them
head shots and the other three upper torso (Grossman &
DeGaetana, 1999).
I
train numerous elite military and law enforcement organizations
around the world. When I tell them of this achievement they
are stunned. Nowhere in the annals of military or law enforcement
history can we find an equivalent "achievement."
Where
does a 14-year-old boy who never fired a gun before get
the skill and the will to kill? Video games and media violence.
- A
Virus of Violence..........The per capita murder rate
doubled in this country between 1957 --when the FBI started
keeping track of the data--and 1992.
- Killing
Unnaturally..........Just as the army is conditioning
people to kill, we are indiscriminately doing the same
thing to our children, but without the safeguards.
- The
Methods in this Madness: Brutalization..........Brutalization
is designed to break down your existing mores and norms
and to implement a new set of values that embrace destruction,
violence, and death as a way of life.
- Classical
Conditioning..........Classical conditioning is like
the famous case of Pavlov's dogs you learned about in
Psychology 101.
- Operant
Conditioning..........The military and law enforcement
community have made killing a conditioned response.
- Role
Models........... No matter what someone has done,
if you put his picture on TV, you have made him a celebrity,
and someone, somewhere, will emulate him.
- Unlearning
Violence..........What is the road home from the dark
and lonely place to which we have traveled?
- Fighting
Back: Education, Legislation, Litigation..........The
following list of nonviolent video games has been developed
by The Games Project.
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Read
a different article:
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Encyclopedia
of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, Volume 3, p.159
© 1999 by Academic Press. All rights of reproduction
in any form reserved.
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